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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 13 reviews
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Product summary
The good: The Pantech PN-215 is a basic camera phone with analog-roaming capabilities and spacious, easy-to-press keys. It feels comfortable in the hand, and the camera, while VGA, has an impressive feature set.
The bad: The Pantech PN-215 has a bulky and unimpressive design.
The bottom line: The Pantech PN-215 is a decent starter phone for this U.S. newcomer, but we would have liked to see a better-designed handset with more features.
Specifications: Band / mode: CDMA 850/1900 / AMPS 850 ; Talk time: Up to 180 min ; Weight: 0.2 lbs See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 03/24/2006
Flipping the PN-215 open, you'll note the unimpressive 65,536-color, 1.75-inch screen. Even so, the display is easy to read, even outdoors in sunlight. You can adjust the brightness, the contrast, and the backlighting time and toggle the font size between normal and large. Underneath the display are the navigational controls. There are two soft keys, a speakerphone button, a camera button, a send/talk button, a Clear button, an end/power button, and a four-way toggle with a middle confirmation key. The four-way toggle also provides shortcuts to Verizon's Mobile Web, Get Pix photo gallery, and Get It Now shopping portal, as well as a user-programmable shortcut key, which is a nice touch. All the buttons are spacious and easy to press, and the menu navigation was easy to use as well. Next are the dial-pad keys, which glow blue when activated. They too are spacious and easy to press, and they're raised far enough above the surface that we could dial by feel.
The Pantech PN-215's phone book stores 500 contacts, with each entry holding up to five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, a ring tone, and a picture for photo caller ID. Contacts can be organized into two existing groups (Family and Work), but creating your own groups is a snap. The phone comes packaged with an astounding 31 polyphonic ring tones in addition to silent and vibrate modes. Organizational tools include a calendar, an alarm clock, a world clock, a notepad, a calculator, and a stopwatch. Other features include text and multimedia messaging, a WAP 2.0 browser, e-mail support, and a voice recorder. You can activate the speakerphone before making a call, which is great, considering that many other cell phones won't let you activate the speakerphone until a call is in session.
The PN-215 is equipped with a VGA camera that takes pictures at three resolutions: 120x160, 240x320, and 480x640. While the quality is a bit disappointing, we appreciate the long list of camera options, which include a self-timer, a flash, six white-balance settings (Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Darkness), three file-quality settings (High, Normal, and Economy), four color effects (Normal, Antique, Black and White, and Negative), and 16 fun frames. You can select one of three camera-shutter sounds or turn the shutter sound off. You can save the picture as wallpaper or a screensaver, send it via MMS or e-mail, or use it as a picture caller ID.
Although the phone can play BREW 2.0 games, it doesn't come with any preloaded titles. You'll have to buy and download the games via Verizon's Get It Now store. The same goes for additional ring tones, wallpapers, and screensavers. The phone does come with four preloaded wallpapers, six screensavers, and four display themes.
The Pantech PN-215 is a dual-band, dual-mode (CDMA 850/1900; AMPS 800) phone that we're just beginning to test. We'll report back soon with our results.The Pantech PN-215 has a rated talk time of up to three hours and a promised standby time of eight days. According to FCC radiation tests, the PN-215 has a digital SAR rating of 1.3 watts per kilogram.
User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 13 reviews
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Showing 3 of 13 user reviewsSee all 13 user reviews
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
"Easy to use and comfortable but speaker leaves something to be desired."
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