I couldn’t even read the numbers on the buttons ............
So a trip to Comet to buy a laptop turned into a trip to buy a new telephone instead - well it was a damn sight cheaper!!!
This telephone or communication centre as they call it, was recommended by a friend and at half the price he paid for it, it appeared to be a bit of a bargain.
The purchase price was £29.50 and you get a lot of phone for your money.
It should apparently retail at somewhere around the £200 mark - but because Amstrad have a lot of advertisers they can offer it to the customer for a snip of the price.
**THE LOOK**
A very professional looking silver phone with an LCD display and loads of extra buttons.
It has a full QWERTY keypad, which tucks nicely underneath the phone for use when sending text messages or emails.
**WHAT IT DOES**
Apart from obviously receiving and making phone calls this phone enables you to send and receive email and send SMS Text.
You can store up to 250 names, with the choice of storing Home, Work and Mobile phone numbers for each listing.
There is also the facility to access the Internet and play games, which you have to download via the phone.
Because of the LCD display you can also see who is calling (you need to subscribe to a Caller Display option with your telephone service provider to access this option). This allows you to ignore calls if you choose!
There is a built in answer phone which allows you to either let the caller leave a message - which you can listen to whilst they talk - or you can set it so that no messages are able to be left and the caller has to phone back later. A small green light in the top left hand corner tells you when you have a message.
The phone will dial out and retrieve any email messages you may have waiting for you - there is a charge for this and a red light in the top right hand corner of the screen will tell you that you have mail.
The phone is not a walkabout one but has a hands free facility that allows you to hold conversations without the need of the earpiece.
The LCD screen shows the time and date and intermittently advertisements will pop up on your screen from Amstrads advertisers - you don’t pay for these!
**CHARGES**
To download games onto the phone there is a charge of 50p for 4 days or £1 for a month usage.
To access your emails it will cost you 12p per session whether you have 1 or 100 emails to retrieve and the price of a local call for as long as you are connected.
Retrieving voicemail is free.
To send a SMS Text is 50p plus local call rate for the amount of minutes is takes to send it.
All other calls charges are per your service provider.
**DISLIKES**
You cannot use this phone without first registering it.
Registration means the phone has to connect to the Internet and you spend 10-15 minutes filling out your details.
You have to be allocated an email address for the phone to work and the registering process does this for you.
Once your email address is set up the phone will now allow incoming and outgoing phone calls.
Now comes the money making scam!
Everyday the phone or Emailer as they call it will dial out to see if you have any new emails waiting to be retrieved. Each time it makes this call it will cost you a minimum of 15p. That’s at least an extra £4.50 a month added to your bill.
The instructions would have you believe that you can set the emailer so that you manually retrieve these emails as and when it suits you, but believe me this is not the case. I have set mine to manual retrieval and the damn thing still dials out at least 3 times a week to retrieve my email - costing me around £1.80 a month.
**CONCLUSION**
Can appear a bit daunting at first sight - but once you get the hang of it it's a breeze.
A smart looking set up which can be very costly on the phone bill.
More details
Range of reception
Excellent
What is the durability of this product?
Good
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
very helpful
very helpful
helpful
helpful
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
