Sanyo Katana II 6650 (black, Sprint)

Pros: Great design, great speakerphone, decent battery life, nice display, user-friendly menu scheme, durability

Cons: VGA camera, no expandable memory slot, small outside LCD screen in comparison with size of phone, volume rocker placed poorly

Summary: I went to Wal-Mart to renew my Sprint contract with the intention of getting the Razr V3m. The salesperson that worked for Sprint there began to show me the differences between the Razr and the Katana II. I was shocked. The Katana II is a much better phone. The Razr's keypad is glued on compared to the Katana's which is embedded into the phone. the Razr is made of cheap plastic parts that are not assembled well. It was flimsy and poorly made compared to the Katana II.

The Katana II has a fantastic speakerphone. Many phones have very poor ones that are hard to hear and hard to be heard on. Many of them produce an echo or muffle your voice to the person you are talking to. Not the Katana. Everyone that I have talked to using the speakerphone said that they couldn't even tell that I was using it at all. They thought I was using the phone normally.

The phone gets decent, but not spectacular battery life. Not much better than many phones, but not much worse either.

The internal LCD display is very crisp and vibrant. At 2", it is very easy to see what you are doing.

The menu scheme is very good for this phone. It is very user-friendly. You don't have to fumble around trying to guess where you are going for the most part. It has a very nice "Favorites" menu that you can link to any function on the phone. I have mine set to enable/disable Bluetooth, find Bluetooth devices, a list of trusted Bluetooth devices, incoming call history, and Bluetooth visability.

On the negative side, I am very disappointed with Sanyo's decision to only include a VGA camera when the Razr sports a 1.3 Megapixel camera. It makes for decent, but under average pictures. However, most people don't use their phone as their main camera, so it's not a huge deal.

The external LCD display is a little on the small side. It is visible, but for those with poor vision, it would be a hassle to see it with any clarity.

I also don't like the absence of a slot to put a SD card in. However, I don't use my phone for many things that require memory, so it's not a huge imposition, but an annoying one.

My biggest gripe with this phone is the placement of the phone/call volume rocker. It sits on the left side of the upper portion of the phone. It is very awkward to get to in the middle of a conversation. A simple oversight, but one that annoys me greatly.

All in all, a grade-A phone that I am very pleased with.