Apr 24, 2004 12:05 PM
2374 Views
(Updated Apr 24, 2004 12:07 PM)
I bought this phone on Baazee without seeing it first hand.
A word of advice, never buy a cell phone you havent seen with your own eyes.
First, why I bought it. It was the cheapest set I could find that had
bluetooth, infrared, GPRS/HSCSD, WAP 1.2 and a bunch of other things.
It is also triband. Most phones with all these features come for more
than double the price.
When I received the phone, I understood why it was so cheap. It is
an ugly phone, with a heavy metallic feeling and quite large ( almost
as long as my hand ). The buttons are horrible, and the one for recording
voice memos ( yes it has that too ) is virtually unusable. It has a flat
wide shape which is very difficult to hold comfortably. And some of its
functions are really badly designed. Two examples are the speakerphone
and the phonebook. There is no easy way to quickly pull up the phonebook
without going thru ten levels of menus, and even after that you cannot
select an entry and hit the call button! You have to remember the
number and dial it. As for the speakerphone, something I use a lot
since I hate holding a cell phone against my ear, it has to be activated
after the call is connected, and goes off everytime any button is
pressed.
I have yet to use the GPRS, bluetooth or infrared features. Maybe
someday I will and feel that this was a good bargain, but for now
my laptop is enough for my needs and I doubt that there is a good
enough case to be made for sacrificing the basic needs of a cell phone
user to include a host of esoteric features. Especially in India at
the moment I dont think there is much of a case to be made for
any of these.
As for the plus points, apart from the cost/functionality advantage,
the display is nice, audio and signals are clear, and there is something
to be said for the bronze metallic color. The battery life and standby
times are decent.
