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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 12 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Ready Link walkie-talkie service; speakerphone; voice and text messaging.
The bad: Short battery life.
The bottom line: The Ready Link-enabled Sprint RL-A760 is a good basic mobile that puts a twist on text messaging.
Specifications: Carrier: Sprint PCS; Band / mode: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 / AMPS 800; Talk time: Up to 180 min; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 01/27/2005
Inside the A760, you'll find a vibrant, 1.8-inch screen that displays 65,000 colors. It's easily readable indoors, and it?s adequate for viewing Web pages, but the display becomes a little washed out in direct sunlight. To navigate the user-friendly menu, there is a four-way navigation toggle with a center Menu/OK button. You also can program each directional key on the toggle to launch your contacts, messaging, text in-box, or VoiceSMS in-box. Surrounding the toggle are the Talk, End, and Back buttons and the left and right soft keys that launch your Ready Link numbers and Contacts list, respectively. The layout is well spaced, and since the buttons, as well as the blue-backlit numerical keypad, are slightly raised from the phone?s surface, it makes dialing by feel easy.
On the A760?s left spine are a volume rocker and the Ready Link key, while on the right spine, there is a handy multifunction button. When the phone is open, a single press opens the Recent Calls list, while a press-and-hold opens the useful voice-command menu (see Features). Conversely, when the phone is closed, the button activates the key guard and also activates the speakerphone during a call. There is a 2.5mm universal jack (with an attached cover) for headsets as well as a retractable antenna on the top of the mobile. To power up, there?s a connector on the bottom of the handset as well as an accessory plug. But take care: unlike the headset jack, the protective cover isn't connected, and we nearly lost it right away.
The Sprint RL-A760 comes with a healthy set of basic features and some fun extras. You get a 300-name phone book with room in each entry for six numbers, as well as e-mail and Web addresses and a birthday reminder. You can organize contacts by caller group or assign them to any of 20 polyphonic or 9 monophonic ring tones. And while there's no integrated camera, you can download photos and images to pair with names for caller ID purposes. With Sprint's Ready Link service, you get an additional phone book for 200 of your closest personal and business contacts. Another handy feature allows you to use the voice-command menu to dial numbers, and if a contact has more than one number, you can specify "mobile" or "home," for example, to access that number. You can also say "status" and the phone will tell you the current signal, battery strength, and coverage. Other goodies include a speakerphone, vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a one-minute voice recorder, a calendar, a task list, a memo pad, a world clock, a countdown timer, a calculator, an alarm clock, a WAP 2.0 Web browser, and an embedded GPS chip for emergency location.As a basic handset, this model doesn't give you any advanced features such as a camera, Bluetooth, or an infrared port for that matter, but it does boast one unique offering. The A760 is the first mobile to offer Sprint's SMS Voice Messaging. Powered by Core Mobility, this functionality builds on text messaging by letting you send and receive instant voice messages without the hassle of going through your voicemail system. You can send these voice messages to another mobile or e-mail address, and you can address it to as many as 10 people. That said, you might be wondering if you need to have the A760 to receive these messages. The answer is no, but it will require an extra step. While A760 owners will automatically be able to listen to the message, others will receive a text message telling them to call an 800 number to retrieve the goods. The cost of SMS Voice Messaging is the same as regular text messaging.
You can personalize the A760 with a variety of wallpaper, screensavers, menu styles, and sounds. If you want to express yourself with other customizations, you can download more options from Sprint's Web site. You also get several demo Java (J2ME)-enabled games: Tetris Deluxe, Ms. Pac-Man, and Solitaire Deluxe. Of course, you can download more to satisfy the gamer in you. The phone has 1MB of download capacity.
We tested the trimode Sprint RL-A760 (Samsung SPH-A760; 800/1900 CDMA; 800 AMPS) in San Francisco and Virginia using Sprint service, and call quality was generally clear with adequate volume levels. We did, however, experience static and patchy calls on several occasions, and callers said they could tell we were on a cell phone. Speakerphone quality generally was good.Talk-time battery life surpassed the promised time, but it still was rather short. We managed 3 hours, 40 minutes of talk time on a single charge, beating the rated talk time of 3 hours. Standby time was just 4.5 days though, far below the promised time of 9 days. According to the FCC, the A760 has a digital SAR rating of 1.35 watts per kilogram and an analog SAR rating of 1.4 watts per kilogram.
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- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 12 reviews
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