Lets talk about SCP 8100. Review on Sanyo SCP 4000

Call me a sneak but I couldnt help getting the SCP 8100 review in here. In my neverending saga with cell phones, this seems to be the worthiest acquisition I've made till date. Backed by Sprint, the SCP 8100 comes loaded with a host of 3-G features that can keep you playing with it for a while. But what I really like about this phone - more than anything else - is that when you take out the goodies and get down to the basics, the Sanyo outperforms most of its competition with this simple fact - when you want to make a call, no matter how far you are buried inside your home or office, this phone works - consistently.

Kartik's Official Sprint Rant

Let me start by subjecting you to my ''Sprint'' rant. The one thing I'll say in it's favor is coverage. No matter what desolate corner of the States you're in, odds are your Sprint phone is picking up a signal from somewhere. The Sprint coverage is probably the most comprehensive I have ever seen when compared to all the other cellular networks. The flip side though is Sprint's phones are usually exorbitantly priced, their service plans are ludicrous, their 3-G is still not nearly as advanced as say the phones that Cingular have, and last and certainly by no means the least, the less than impressive customer service.

I have been with Sprint for 2 years and I have maintained a love-hate relationship with them. In the 2 years I have had Sprint service, I've switched out 3 phones. The first and second were the trademark silver colored Samsung flip phones (state of the art at the time I bought them but technology quickly caught up and outdated them within months). The major hang up I had with Samsung is that the quality, simply put, sucked. The battery life of these phones was annoyingly low and I ended up charging the phone practically every day. The last one I had (a Samsung N 400) came with an auto power save feature that would shut off the phone after a period of non use. Not any better. More irritating if anything.

How the SCP8100 came in to my life

Well I had the N 400 for a year until opportunity presented itself in a wickedly comical turn of events. My co-workers and I were enjoying a Friday afternoon off at a nearby thrill park - go karting. It might have either been the sun or the months of gruelling work schedules.. but for whatever reason.. I decided on this particular occasion to carry my cell phone in my pocket. I'd count bungee-jumping with a cell phone in your shirt pocket as probably the only other thing that could possibly be more ridiculous than what I did. Here we were in the middle of a race, and I was taking a corner at breakneck speed - not looking behind me - and all of a sudden from left field.. there's a loud thud and before you know it I'm spinning out of control. Sound like a bad Nascar rerun? I wish.

A not so happy pit attendant walked up clucking his tongue at me..obviously I was overplaying the Dale Earnhardt role.. but pretty soon I realized my pockets felt strangely lighter. As I walked out, the same pit attendant yelled for me.. and I walked back up to him and he handed me something metallic .. and silver colored. It was the flip to my cell phone. Not too far off on the counter I saw a piece of an LCD screen. Ouch. The N 400 had gotten mutilated by a go kart! Fancy that. I wasnt the happiest guy in the block at the time. I sulked all the way to the Sprint store to explain to a very amused Sprint customer service agent how my cell phone got run over by a go kart. And how I needed an upgrade. But this is god's honest truth! This was exactly how the SCP 8100 came into my life. When I look back to my Samsung days now, I feel no remorse that my old phone was destroyed. Cause the SCP8100 gave me a whole new perspective on Sprint that I hadnt seen with the Samsung phones.

OK so whats the big deal with the SCP 8100

Among other things, the size. The SCP 8100 is the only phone that fits in the palm of my hand. At 3.3 by 1.9 by 1.1 inches and a mere 3.9 ounces, this is a really compact little instrument. Not only that - I went from silver to dark blue. You're probably asking yourself what the big deal is. The big deal is that the SCP 8100 is a Sanyo phone. And when it comes to quality, Sanyo is clearly ahead of the game.

One of the first things I found I didnt have to do with the Sanyo phone is spend an inordinate amount of time charging it. It already came half charged (which was a first) and after plugging it in to an adapter at home, it was fully charged and ready to go.

The second thing was.. surprise surprise..my new phone worked EVERYWHERE.. in office buildings.. in my bedroom.. even in my bathroom for goodness sakes. That shed light on one of the big sore points I've had with Sprint.. their reception indoors. Well turns out it had to do with the Samsung antenna. I don't know a great deal about cell phone antennas but I do know this - Sanyo's antenna can pick up just about anywhere.

And then the third point. Ease of use. Sanyo's menu is very user friendly and intuitive. You don't have to do a whole lot of scalp scratching to figure out how to get to a feature or use it. It's all right there in front of you. Things that took me 10 steps to get to in the N400 took me 2-3 steps in this phone. And being a programmer, I'm not one to take user friendliness lightly!

The goody bag

The SCP 8100 comes with a built in camera that's definitely not top of the line - with a resolution of 352 x 288, the pictures are hardly print worthy and just about the minimum required for email or web. But hey, when you're looking to take people by surprise .. this little phone comes in handy.

But what really knocked my socks off was photo caller ID. You take pictures of all your friends. And you associate each photo with a phone number. The SCP8100 has a sub LCD screen outside the clam shell flip that will actually show you the picture of whoever is calling! I thought that was awesome.

Then there's the Voice Memo feature. You can screen calls and use your own phone as an answering machine if you just dont feel like answering. Very useful if you value your privacy. You can actually also email pictures taken on your phone by attaching an email message and a voice memo.

Dual Band/Tri Mode: This is where SCP 8100 totally blows the N400 out of the water. You get coverage no matter where you are. The phone picks up 1900 Mhz- CDMA, 800 MHz - CDMA and 800 MHz - analog. So if you're in a bind and absolutely need to use the phone you're in luck.

Then there's the polyphonic rings. I have different ring tones for different people so I can figure out who not to talk to. The default ringer set has some vanilla ring tones but there's also the groovy stuff with beats. And since you have 3-G support, you can actually upload ringers to your phone from the web. The ringers have to be MIDI files and preferably not too big.

The SCP 8100 can store upto 300 entries with upto 500 phone numbers, 300 emails and 300 URLs. You can use the calendar/scheduler to schedule events and reminders and maintain to-do lists, so the phone basically doubles as an organizer.

Well the SCP 8100 is here to stay.. for as long as I stay away from go-kart tracks or grow a brain.. whichever happens first. But this is a really good buy - if you're a first time customer there are good rebates on this phone and I believe you can get it for as low as 99 bucks. If you are an existing Sprint customer and have had your previous phone for 18 months or over, you pay the full price of the phone and get your rebate mailed in.

If you've had your previous phone for less than 18 months..w