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"Great Camera / Rest Could be Better" on by graymond
Pros: Camera, Optical Zoom, Keyboard, Fit/Finish, Flip/Rotate Screen, Water/Dust Resistance, Shortcut Keys
Cons: Mediocre Contact List & Groups, Mediocre Appointment Scheduling, Mediocre Photo Editing
Summary: Last week, I upgraded my 3-year old Samsung A990 to the new Casio Exilim C721, and have now used this phone extensively and formed some strong opinions.
The GOOD news:
G1) C721 has a good camera, including optical zoom. I like the photos and controls, and feel this upgrade from 3.2 Mp to 5.1 Mp is important
G2) VZ Navigator works almost everywhere on the C721, including inside many buildings where I know many competitors won't operate well.
G3) I like the flexibility of assigning shortcuts on the C721 in comparison to the more limited A990.
G4) Great screen, easy to use keyboard, nicely lit keyboard.
G5) Nice size, fits well in my hand.
G6) Very good battery life.
G7) The flip and rotate screen is great! Using the phone as a camera easy and natural.
G8) Decent sound quality for rings and speaker phone. Good phone reception and operation.
G9) One button shortcut to place into vibrate mode, turn on speaker, activate voice control, speed dial, lock the phone, and more.
G10) Instant response, no hesitation to any function - except camera does take a couple of seconds to start.
G11) Water & Dust resistance - should come in handy in future.
The bad news (B1-4). Most of the new features I was hoping to be upgraded (aside from the camera) still have most of the same A990 disappoointing limitations; some are quite irksome. I don't know if it is Casio or Verizon who are responsible for this poor software.
B1) Verizon calendar functionality is mediocre.
The C721 can't: tie appointments to contacts and/or notes. It does not permit setting default values for appointment fields. It forces me to specify CDT vs CST. Why not give me the option of just specifying CT without the "D" or "S". Let the cell network figure out whether daylight savings time is active.
B2) C721 contact groups are limited to a max of 10 entries. How in the world do programmers think you can sell a phone with 500 or 1000 phone contacts and only permit a max of 10 contacts per group?
B3) When I looked up contacts on the A990, I would just open the phone and type the starting letters of a name. For example, to look up "Elaine", just type: 352 (more digits if you like) and press UP arrow. Contacts matching 352 would pop-up. Fast and simple. With the C721, I have to use contact search method (also available on A990): press "Contacts", and multi-tap through names: C335552 - typically twice the keystrokes.
I don't appreciate search for contacts only by matching characters at the beginning of name. I need to search by any portion of name, by phone number or area code. I store names as "Bob Jones". I want to search for "Jones" and also find "Bob Jones".
The A990 had a note field associated with each contact; the C721 has dropped this important feature.
Overall, this phone has barely adequate, mediocre contact list & group software functionality.
B4) Casio photo editing software is inadequate. My A990 provided ability to rotate, crop and size, annotate, copy & paste, apply various effects to photos. The C721 cannot rotate photos, cannot perform the majority of A990 photo editing functions, and the minimal crop & resize are only of limited use. I'm really disappointed by the mismatch of software to this better type of camera - a significant step down from what I had with the A990.
Summary
Well, I got the improved optics, resolution, and optical zoom I wanted in this upgrade from my old Samsung A990 to the new Casio Exilim C720. Pretty much everything else is on par with what I had or a downgrade. With better software, I would rate the camera 4.5 out of 5.0, but have to rate it 3.5 instead. With better contact and calendar software, ease of use should have been a full point higher than the 3.0 rating I giving the C721. I'm also giving myself a "2" for making the decision to do this upgrade. I should have continued to wait for a more significant camera-phone product. And for those of you who would suggest the Samsung Omnia 5 Mp phone - I've used one for about a week, and didn't like it either. I'm convinced that Verizon just doesn't offer a high-quality full-featured camera-phone product yet in the USA. -
"Worth Considering for Purchase" on by yinyang_rides
Pros: Crystal clear and sharp screen; voice clear in and out; less call loss compared to previous verizon phone, ruggedized is important for me (last phones dead 2 by water, 1 by horse); intuitive menu and did I mention the camera/vidoe capabilities - WOW.
Cons: Lack of touch screen, pricey even though I wanted all features that it has. must hardwire to synch w/PC. Can't replace my PDA with this phone and still aim for that with next generation of ruggedized phones. Would like greater micro sd capacity.
Summary: This phone slips easily and safely into my jeans pocket without bulk, screen is visible in room and outdoor light so I can see timers for workingouts for self and horses, alarm will replace my old stand-alone alarm clock with much better tones to announce wake-up, already got water on it when open when our just-bathed Great Pyrennes decided to shake his fur out all over me without any problem for screen or keys. Haven't needed html/net access yet. Have taken and downloaded pics and video clips and have put my 10 mgp Canon on standby as a result ditto 3ccd digital video camera. Imaqes are crisp. Image storage limited by microSD capacity. Still can't replace my PDA with it, though.
For me, bottom line, worth getting, enjoy using. -
"Great camera, solid phone, good call quality" on by belligerentfuture
Pros: Camera is pretty great, with a strong zoom.
Call quality is good (not landline perfect but very good).
Speaker phone is loud.
Very very solid feeling. I drop this thing all the time, no problems. The twisting screen isn't flimsy.Cons: Video is ok, looks more pixelated, and you can only zoom *before* you start shooting.
Battery life is fine/acceptable, but with normal talk time (i.e. you use it as your 'only' phone) you need to charge it every 1-2 nights.Summary: The camera features are truly camera quality. Flipping the screen around to use as viewer is *genius* and having the buttons on top that feel like real camera buttons make it as easy/simple/intuitive to use as a regular old camera.
With the microSD slot you can take a lot of pictures/videos. NOTE: to use the sync dock, you need to be running XP home or older (seriously!), but its not necessary if you save all your photos/etc a flash card and then put that directly into your computer. ***IF YOU USE A MICROSD CARD THIS PHONE *IS* COMPATIBLE WITH MAC***
Most ruggedized phones (i.e. something that's not gonna break every time it gets bumped) are UGLY and huge/fat. This phone is larger than a lot of other flip phones, but no so big that its a big deal, mostly because its slim and sleek (fits in your pocket).
I had a cheap samsung flip phone (samsung smooth) that had abysmal call quality, and I wanted to find something with acceptable battery life and CLEAR CALLS so I wouldn't be constantly repeating myself. This gets good signal but also has good speaker quality (you hearing the caller) and good microphone quality (them hearing you).
Verizon doesn't make you have a data plan with this phone, which was a plus for me (i'm attached to my computer all day, don't need a smartphone). It does do some limited data stuff like VCast etc.
I haven't dropped it in water (yet!) but considering the rest of its 'ruggedized' features hold up, I would assume it really can take a dunking with out shorting out (we've all been there!!). -
"Not Windows 7 Compatible" on by barrys129
Pros: Water Resistant
Cons: USB Driver not compatible with Windows 7
Summary: UNSATISFACTORY!!! The USB driver for this phone is not compatible with Windows 7. There is no update available from Casio. You will NOT be able to connect to laptop or PC. NO AccessManager, NO MobileBroadband. Those and many other advertised features require a USB connection which is not possible to any Windows 7 computer. THIS IS TOTALLY UNSATISFACTORY.
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"I love my phone" on by lmalabed
Pros: 1) like the size, way it fits in my hand. 2) not worried about dropping it or letting it get a little wet. built for some abuse. 3) easy to read screen, keys big enough for my hand. 4) menus + shortcut buttons=easy. 5) EXCELLENT clarity and volume.
Cons: (1) It was expensive. (2) the camera is a pain in the neck. The pic quality is good, but messing with options like back light, flash, etc. a real drag
Summary: If I lost it, I'd buy the same one again. My favorite camera of all I've owned.
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