I was attracted to this phone namely through the unbeatable offer of 500 minutes to any network for a mere £25-No other network comes close!
FEATURES
The phone itself boasts some impressive features with video calls, multimedia texting, polyphonic ringtones, Wav player and a camera but there are some very disappointing features as well. I was surprised that there was no car charger, this is usually a standard accessory!
THE GOOD AND BAD BITS
LOOK,FEEL and DESIGN-Chunky and solid you either love it or hate it.
I like it. Yes its big but you feel like you have sturdy phone. It also feels very comfortable to talk in
to. Key Pad layout is nice and simple and boys with big fingers won't struggle with tiny keys.
GRAPHICS & TEXTING-Disappointing!
For starters, the graphics and menu layout are not particularly aesthetic for such a multifunctional phone.Similar in some ways to the Ericcsons, you have to fumble around a lot of menus to text and send messages.Texting speed is somewhat slow as well which can be annoying!
RINGTONES/RINGTUNES-Impressive selection but xtras are pricey.
The ringtunes sound great. You have the facility to download a further 20 but at £2 a pop from 3, be very,very careful-it's no wonder they enticed new customers with £10/£20 of freebies for 3 months! You can also allocate individual ringtunes to your contacts which I love-I know whos ringing before I even look.
CAMERA/VIDEO-Nifty Gadget!
Quality is fine, pretty much in line with most camera phones to date. You can record 12 seconds of video footage and it has a Zoom facility. The camera can be adjusted to face towards or away.There are three settings for Image quality, Low,Med and High and there is also a self timer which allows you 5-20 secs to get ready.
CONTACTS MENU AND PERSONALISATION-Nice but needs to be simplified!
I do like the facility to personalise your contacts with their own groups,ringtunes and even flashing lights, however I think space for Home mail addresses would have been a useful inclusive feature. I feel the NEC606 may have gone a bit OTT with the personalisation options-13 in total, 5 of which I think arent needed. You can attach a jpeg of your friends which comes up when they ring, quite amusing if nothing else.
BATTERY LIFE-Absolutely shocking!
The Battery life has been a bit of a let down although having a spare included in the pack is useful if you remember to charge it and keep it on you. On average with 3 or 4 long calls and texting, the phone lasts between a day and a day and a half on one charge. The colour screen I believe is renouned for zapping power, be careful with settings, turning the back light off helps.
CALL COVERAGE-Average-needs some work
3's video call coverage is a bit unreliable but it is a young expanding company and should improve with more subscribers.However, the voice call coverage should be better, especially since the network piggy backs off O2 switching from 3G to 2G accordingly.
An annoying quirk is that calls are often dropped when it switches from 3-2G and vice versa-enough said.
AUDIO PLAYER-Excellent
I was very impressed with the Audio Player, while it only takes wav files, MP3's can easily be converted to wav with free converter downloads from the net. The Phone fits about 10 songs which is great and it takes seconds to download your files from your PC.
CALENDER-Nice and easy but dont attempt to synch it with OUTLOOK!
I like the calender feature, it's easy to use and you can set alarm reminders and specific icons but...
The Outlook Calender synching is terrible. You have to convert your own PC entries to compatible formats individually-really isnt worth the effort and I hope the newer models have addressed this.
BLUE TOOTH-Audio only
The phone says it has bluetooth but I have yet to find a way of making this function-what was the point of including this technology if ot doesnt work??
SUMMARY
Overall, there are a lot of Pros and Cons but on the whole it's easy to use. It's got a hell of a lot of features jammed into one phone, which in some cases havent been thought through particularly well. It's a cracking deal in terms of talktime and the new 3G phones can only but improve.
P.S: keep reading I update this regularly, this was updated 22/10/03
24.11.2003 20:27
great op...dave
15.11.2003 00:02
I'm being very honest with you when I say this is one of the best mobile phone ops I've read. Terrific Read!!! Chris. xxxx
07.10.2003 21:17
Good op, nice to hear someone be honest about a phone as you pay so much for them and then get them home and it's a brick.