- Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 5 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Flimsy...yes. Cheap...NO!"
Pros: An ENORMOUS contact memory, dedicated lock button, MusicDJ program (to make your own tunes on the phone), FM Radio, 5 different alarms, great organizer, etc.
Cons: Flimsy flip thingy, low volume on speakerphone, lack of camcorder, tiny "OK" button
Summary: Overall, I like the phone. The pros way outshine the cons, in my opinion. I spent $30 on this phone with a new contract (actually my job did) and I have to say that it is packed with options, features, and enough bells and whistles to WOW you, especially for the price. Though the speaker on the back does fall short of decent, I recommend purchasing the optional headset. It actually has breakaway earphones and allows you to hook it up to any stereo and play your music wherever you are. I haven't used the Bluetooth features yet, but I thought it was really cool that with my phone hooked up to my car stereo listening to music, I got a call and it played through the speakers. I know there are Bluetooth setups to do this as well, but the headset was $25-can't beat that. Also, the FM radio displays the artist, song, and station info like the newer car radios do. The music player, Walkman, feature is great for the price. Hell, you get more functions than an iPod, though it can't compete overall. With the optional headset, the bass in those earpieces are very comparable to Bose Quiet Comfort headphones. As an audiophile, I appreciate crisp and clean bass that isn't muddy or takes away from the other frequencies. I am EXTREMELY impressed with these earphones. I have always been a fan of Sony's more affordable earphones and the sound they deliver, I would almost buy these stereo hands-free earphones just for the earphones. I promise, if you are a avid music lover, the headset will deliver, providing you have good quality music files. It was a little tricky getting the music on the phone with the programs Sony recommends. I recommend familiarizing yourself with a 3rd party music editing program to reduce the size of your music files while maintaining the quality then just dragging and dropping them through Windows. This will allow you to fit more onto the memory card without hurting the sound. I used a program that reduced my files down to 80 kbs and they honestly sound about as good as the identical 128 kbs songs on my iPod running through the same connection. What I was most impressed about was the contacts list. An enourmous memory, allowing you to store up to 1000 unique contact names, and up to 2500 individual numbers! What's more, on each contact, you uhave the option of storing up to 5 numbers, 3 email addresses, a web address, assign a picture and a ringtone, store up to 2 full street addresses including state and ZIP, misc. info and last but not least their birthday. With my job, being able to store that much info per contact eliminates the need to pull out my laptop for addresses and misc info. Though it would be nice to have a couple higher volume notches to put the ringer on, the vibrating will definately alert you to a call if there's a lot of noise or don't hear it ring. Its very distinctive, short and pulsating rather than a long, dull vibrate like on most phones. Its nice too when youu have the phone in your pocket listening to music and you change the track, it give you a short vibrate to confirm your choice. Haven't found the dedicated Walkman button on the top left of the phone useful yet, would much prefer it to be a camera activation/shutter button since the Walkman is fully accessible when the flip is closed. I think this phone is a great phone for someone who wants to have music more on the go or doesn't want to have a separate device (iPod) just for music. Invest in the larger memory card when buying, as you will be able to store everything else on it along with music. I don't currently have data services on my plan, but the email interface looked pretty impressive for a non-Smartphone and thought it was really cool that it comes pre-loaded with apps like XM Radio (i think that when they can put satelite radio on a tiny cell phone, thats impressive). Some cons were: no dedicated "call" or "end" buttons. They become available on the soft keys when appropriate, which has become annoying because they seem to switch some functions from the left key to the right key and vice versa during some navigations. The navigation buttons can be programmed for shortcuts when on the home screen but the soft keys can't. They are dedicated to Recent Calls (left) and Menu (right). If your looking for a new phone from AT&T, go to your local store and see if they will allow you to bring back the phone after 30 days or so if you aren't satisfied just in case you don't fall in love with it. I think you will though. Most of the cons of this phone are things that you could easily just get used to and aren't really enough to be a deal breaker
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