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The Sanyo MM-8300's camera also doubles as a video recorder. The length of the video clips depends on which quality mode you choose: Rich (15 seconds), Normal (20 seconds), and Economy (30 seconds). You can also record with or without sound and in two resolutions, 176x144 and 128x96. The flash is available to brighten scenes, but be aware that it does a decent job only if you are within short range of your subject. Other camcorder features include an audible cue before shooting, a self-timer, and zoom. As with pictures, you can save video recordings to the phone's shared memory, then send them via multimedia message or to Sprint's Picture Mail service.
If you'd rather be entertained instead of doing the entertaining, you can use the MM-8300's media player to download and play videos and music from Sprint. You can preview channels from Sprint TV, including NBC Mobile, Fox Sports, and the Weather Channel, before purchasing them at a $9.99 monthly rate. We checked out some samples and found the idea of watching TV on your phone fun and entertaining, but the videos were a little too blurry for our tastes. In addition to video, you can stream music; keep in mind, though, that Sprint's videos run on a 2.5G 1xRTT network. Data speeds are between 50Kbps to 70Kbps, compared with 300Kbps to 500Kbps on Verizon's 3G V Cast service. Also, video clips play at 15fps as opposed to 30fps on a normal TV set, so don't expect too much from the experience.
You can personalize your handset with a variety of wallpaper, screensavers, and sounds, and of course, you can always download more options and ring tones. There is also a My Buddy setting that displays an animated character--a kangaroo, in our case--hopping across your internal and external displays; you have the option to turn this off if you find it too annoying or cutesy. As far as games, the Sanyo MM-8300 supports Java (J2ME) games and includes three demos (Jamdat Solitaire, Ms. Pac-Man, and Tetris Deluxe), but again, you can download more titles.
We tested the dual-band/trimode (CDMA 800/1900; AMPS 800) Sanyo MM-8300 in San Francisco and experienced good call quality overall. On our end, sound quality was clear, although there were a couple of instances in which the party on the other line sounded somewhat garbled; our callers said they had no problem hearing us. Volume was plenty loud, even in noisy environments. In fact, we found it to be almost too loud even as we turned the volume to its lowest setting. The speakerphone also performed admirably.The Sanyo MM-8300 is rated for 3.5 hours of talk time. However, in our real-world tests, we got significantly less. On a single charge, we coaxed just 2.25 hours of talk time and a solid 7.5 days of standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the MM-8300 has a digital SAR rating of 0.89 watts per kilogram and an analog SAR rating of 0.86 watts per kilogram.
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