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"it is a crisp device that serves the needs of the boss playing golf" on by derfjr69
Pros: does not lockup, has a great responseive keypad touch
Cons: the antenna
Summary: i have had Every single pda out there from tmobile,ccingular, nextel, alltel and now verizon let me share something with you. looks are important but reliability and respomse to speed is the important things
the pn-820 is a very strong and "smart" phone if you do not absolutely have to answer emails from a hanheld device. u can read them fine from this phone at least give it a try i have had mine for 3 days now and i love it -
"Disappointing Not-so-smart phone" on by jmmailin
Pros: Bright Display, EZ to Access Alarm/Calendar functions
Cons: No Voice Dialing via wireless headset
Summary: Sturdier than many have given credit for. Attractive is subjective: I like its looks. Bright display. I don't need a camera in phone but this one works impressively. Idea of paying to watch video on smaller than 2" screen almost insulting - but you can. What you can't do however, is use voice commands via a wireless headset, the single most important safety feature for what I'd guess to be the majority of us who will engage at some time in hazardous act of placing a call while driving*. Once you've wrested the phone off your belt and initiated the call via voice command through the handset, it switches seamlessly to the headset. Note that the Verizon case (purchased separately) does not detach from the belt clip. Accepting calls via the headset is not a problem, though I find Bluetooth reception weak and have had more dropped calls in a month and a half with this phone than in the prior 5 years with Verizon.
*Note that I have attempted to initiate calls via voice commands with an LG, Motorola, and a Plantronics headset, and DID SUCCEED on 3 successive occasions on one night - but neither I nor Verizon store personnel have been able to duplicate that feat since. I have spent several HOURS cumulatively in 2 separate Verizon stores and on the phone where they finally surmised you can't do it without a 3d party software fix.Updated
Unlike my prior phone which made no claims of being a "smart" phone, you cannot set this phone to give so much as a reminder beep that you have unchecked voice or text messages. If you miss a call, voicemail or text message - you won't know it's there until you next open the phone - it does show on the display. Have now tried total of 5 Bluetooth headsets from Motorola (2), LG (2)& Plantronics (1), but reception is so bad the other end, I have had to all but abandon use of the headsets as I was having to hang up, turn off headset and return calls via the handset for the other party to be able to hear and understand me. Neither I nor Verizon personnel have been able to replicate the feat of initiating a voice-dialed call via any headset, though at this point, as stated above, headset performance has gotten so steadily worse that I'm not sure if any longer worth the trouble. -
"phone/software needs some big fixes" on by windsorhollow
Pros: see opinion below
Cons: see opinion below
Summary: I really want to like this phone, but there are too many nuisances/bugs that make for an unpleasureable experience. I am pretty sure I will return it to Verizon. I have been long waiting for a compact phone that has full featured contacts and calendar so that I can sync to Microsoft outlook. All the other PDA's that are out there are too bulky. So when I saw this unit I was like... "ahh finally". Anyway, I read some reviews on this site before I bought the phone, and was psyched at what was being said... However, after using this phone for a few weeks, I wonder if the previous reviewers were a little star stuck initially. So here are my issues....
CONS-
-No ability to adjust keypad light time. It times out waaay too quickly.
- The extremely thin Battery that came with this phone only lasts 1/2 a day!! the specs on this battery are inaccurate. I average about 10 text messages a day, and 5 short phone calls. This is unacceptable!!
-When the phone shuts down because of the battery being low, it looses the current date and time and defaults to 2006 until I hook it up and synchronize to my old WINXP desktop via the supplied USB cable. Not good!!
-No software support for VISTA via "SYNC CENTER". My new HP laptop came with VISTA, and MICROSOFT replaced "activesync" with "sync center". Activesync is not supported in VISTA. What to do now??
-Software menus are not organized well... it takes too many steps to access some frequently used features. UTSTAR which wrote the software for Pantech, needs to go back to the drawing board here and focus on usability. I loved the way my old LG phones operating system was designed!! Hey UTSTAR!! How about a "focus group" or some "beta testers"???
- Ringer is not very loud. Calls are easily missed.
- The camera is basically unusable!! If you snap a photo, the image that is frozen on the screen, is not the one that is saved!! The image that is captured is about two seconds delayed. Why is this??
- I wanted to get stereo Bluetooth headset to use it as a MP3 player, but a lot of reviewers seem to have problems getting Bluetooth to work with this unit. Oh, well…
PROS-
-nice looking
- bright screen
-compact size -
"More bugs than features" on by edmondsonjd
Pros: Bright screen, compact design
Cons: Horrendous battery life, sluggish response, lacking muscle
Summary: First, this isn't one of those "I used my friends and it sucked" or "This phone would be perfect if customer service knew what they were doing" kind of reviews. I used the phone for nearly 3 months before finally deciding the headache of buying a new phone was more acceptable than the headaches of keeping this phone.
Price - I'm still not 100% sure how it happened, but thanks to the "New Every Two" program and a mail-in rebate, I actually got this phone for free. I haven't found a better price for a cell phone and since no one is willing to pay me to use their product, I'd say the price was a 10.
Service - Verizon cellular and EV-DO service is still the best on the market for my dollar. Coverage is amazing given the areas of the country I have to routinely travel. Zero issues with service.
Features - I loved the idea of having a smartphone in a flip-phone design. I have the big, bulky brick of a Treo stuck in my pocket most days, so the idea of something that could handle the basics of a Treo while providing the slim profile of a flip was tantilizing. The first issue I had with this phone was no document viewer. I was dissapointed to read that I could view Micrsoft Word and Excel files (I don't remember where I read that) only to learn that a software upgrade was needed first. Dissappointing, but I was really only after the ability to view email and send a short response.
Setting up the email accounts for enterprise and POP3 was a breeze, as it typically is with most smartphones. Sending and receiving emails was a breeze, as it is with most smartphones. Text messages are a breeze. The phone also has the ability to tether to a laptop and PDA for use as a modem (I kept my full-featured IPAQ for planning purposes) using both a USB cable and Bluetooth.
The greatest shortcoming in this phone, however, is the battery life when trying to accomplish those things in a single day. I work, as do most, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. In a garden variety day I might send and receive half a dozen text messages and a dozen or so emails. Many was the time that I would leave my home with a full charge and return with a dead phone at the end of the day - and that was without making a single phone call!!! When speaking with Verizon and surfing Pantech websites, there is not currently on the market an extended battery for this phone. There is also no cradle with which to charge a spare battery. Ultimately, this was the issue that killed my ability to use this phone.
Second was the backlight on the keypad. In winter months when the sun sets at an early hour, being able to see the keypad is pretty essential. The backlight on the keypad stays lit for approximately 3 seconds after the last keytap. Nowhere in the settings does it appear you can change this feature. Reading the manual indicates and area where the change can be made. After setting the timeout on the keypad light to 60 seconds, it still goes out after 3. Very frustrating.
Along with the slim design comes the lack of significant memory or processor speed. As such, soft resets were an almost daily occurence. I only ever went to two internet sites using my phone (both webmail sites) and it seemed I always found the phone to be ridiculously sluggish after viewing either site, thus requiring a reset. The phone also routinely got stuck on any webpage over 100kb in size, also requiring a reset.
Nearly every other day I found that I would open my contacts list and see empty space. It wasn't that the contacts weren't there; but for some reason, the phone simply wouldn't display any names or numbers. The only solution - soft reset.
Call Quality - Here, again, is one of the more frustrating issues that ultimately led me away from this phone. Calls never seemed to have the same quality twice, no matter where I was making the call from or signal strength. Tinny voices, delays, static, and echoes hounded almost every call. Furthermore, calls seemed to drain the battery at about twice the pace of any other phone I'd used previously; even the bohemouths like Treo and HP. With just about every smartphone and standard cell phone I'd used previously, I could get at least 24 hours of garden variety use before the battery sunk to a dangerously low level. With this phone, the battery was drained and the phone dead within 7 hours of normal use.
Ultimately I went back to Treo to ensure that the functionality I need and desire is always there. I guess I'll just bide my time until Treo comes up with a flip-phone version.
I hope this review helped. Thanks! -
"...great device!" on by kharlan1
Pros: ..does just about everything my Treo did
Cons: ..no qwerty key board
Summary: I've had a Treo for some time and wanted to go to a smaller device. Almost got the Motorola Q when I saw this one! It does just about everything my Treo did and is much smaller, which I like. Volume is great, has reminders for the calendar, and let's you know when e-mail comes in. I receive a lot of e-mail and have to respond to about half of them. I don't mind using the phone number pad...since the numbers are larger it is easy to type in a message. The phone itself was very easy to set up. The programs are easy to use(e-mail, contacts, calendar,etc) and the menus offered on each are very good. I definitely like this above the Treo and Motorola Q...
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