Panasonic GD87

Recently, my phone was stolen but I managed to get a new one (this one) by claiming off my home insurance. It is the newer model of my stolen phone. I was expecting great things from my new phone, loads of extra features, an easier to use interface and text messaging that doesn't take you ages to write a simple text. Was I content with my new phone? Yes and no, read on.

The Interface
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Well, there ...
...interface compared to my old phone. Easy on the eye graphics such as 3D icons and better resolution gives a clearer screen and makes using your mobile so much more fun. But graphics aren't everything. It is quite hard to find some of the features available on your phone, such as if you want to change your ringtone for example, without looking at its location in the manual it can take you some time to locate what you are looking for. If you ask me, ... more

Recently, my phone was stolen but I managed to get a new one (this one) by claiming off my home insurance. It is the newer model of my stolen phone. I was expecting great things from my new phone, loads of extra features, an easier to use interface and text messaging that doesn't take you ages to write a simple text. Was I content with my new phone? Yes and no, read on.

The Interface
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Well, there is a vast improvement on the graphical side of the interface compared to my old phone. Easy on the eye graphics such as 3D icons and better resolution gives a clearer screen and makes using your mobile so much more fun. But graphics aren't everything. It is quite hard to find some of the features available on your phone, such as if you want to change your ringtone for example, without looking at its location in the manual it can take you some time to locate what you are looking for. If you ask me, all phones are like that, there should be interactive help on the phone itself or even a search function to find things more quickly. Its such a hassle sometimes, especially if you have lost the manual for your phone :). I'm not saying that its hard to find everything on your phone, just some of the settings such as the LCD backlight for example. All of the main features such as the Camera are easy to find as they are on what I would call 'The Main Menu', the place you are taken when you press the menu button on the phone.

Features
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The nine main features are:

1. Settings
2. Contacts List
3. Games
4. Browser
5. Camera
6. Messaging
7. Data Folders
8. Organiser
9. Vodafone

Settings

The place where you can change just about anything on your phone, you name it you can probably change it. You can change the LCD screen colour, where the shortcut button takes you on your phone (top right button when you switch your phone on, mine is currently set to Camera), display settings, alerts, keys, phone settings, clock, call service, call divert, security, network and if your not satisfied just change them back to default.

One of my favourite settings is being able to choose different LCD screen colours depending on whether you have a voice mail, a text message or a mobile call.

You can change the background image of your phone to any image that is currently stored within your phone. So you can take an image of your favourite poster and set it as the background image for the phone.

I mean, seriously, there are so many settings that you could play with the settings alone all day and still not decide which settings you want on your phone. Infact, I find it a little annoying sometimes because there are so many settings to look through that you just can't be bothered. I have only changed a few and left the rest alone.

Contacts List (Phone Book)

Nothing particularly special here, just an ordinary phone book like any other modern phone.

You can create new contacts and the phone automatically stores them for you, I say automatically because on my last phone I had to actually choose where to store them, I had to give each new contact a number and if the number already existed it would ask if I wanted to overwrite the old contact. The disadvantage there is that you forget what numbers you have used, even if you use them in sequence so that is a simple change but a great improvement upon the old model.

You can enter the following details for each and every contact on your phone: First Name, Last Name, Home Num, Work Num, Mobile Num, Other Num, Home Email, Work Email, Other Email, URL, Title, Company, Note, Photo. You can also set separate ringtones for each contact so that you know who is phoning you before you pick up your phone.

You can also insert contacts into groups such as Family. You could put all the contacts who are your family into this group, it keeps organisation to your phone book and you can set ringtones for each group.

There are some other features to the phone book including checking how much storage space you have left for contacts, how your phone book is sorted (e.g. first name or last name).

Games

I have to say, I am quite disappointed with the quality of the games that came with the phone, yes you can download more but they could have created some better quality games for the phone to begin with. Now this is just my opinion so maybe other people really like the games but to me the games are all about graphics without the gameplay and gameplay is so much more important to me.

The games that come with the phone are:

-Space War - basically a flying game where you shoot enemies to kill them.
-Rollerkid - You can choose from four different characters and you pull off stunts whilst roller blading along streets.
-Panko - A top view game where you can collect items.
-Crazy Cobra - A version of snake which really should be scrapped from all phones in the world. Its boring because the rules aren't the same and the speed is just too easy.

You can set your nickname so that when you get high scores on games your nickname is shown.

If you ask me, you will be downloading games as soon as you get your phone just so that you know you have some decent games on your phone to play with when your bored.

Browser

Well, if you have used the internet and I'm sure you have if your reading this, then WAP on mobiles is nothing special. It costs a lot of money, takes ages to load and all you see is text apart from internet sites where you can download pictures. You can enter URL's to visit websites, bookmark pages for future viewing, set browser settings such as font size and colour priority. I don't use WAP because I'd rather use the internet on a laptop such as the one I am writing this opinion on or a desktop PC, much faster, better to look at and easier to use, cheaper too. Do not buy a phone for WAP.

Camera

One thing that stood out straight away to me was the quality of the images that the camera took. They aren't very good even on the highest resolution. At least there are some features that are included with the camera to make up for the loss of quality. Features included are:

-A photolight to take pictures in the dark.
-Twilight mode so that night looks more like day.
-There are a few effects that you can add such as a sepia tone to your pictures.
-You can add frames to give a nice border to the pictures that you take.
-You can increase the resolution so that you can take images that spread over a wider area.
-You can set different capture modes, self timer for example so that you can stand the phone on a chair and it will take a picture within a few seconds. Great for taking group pictures with everyone included.

Messaging

There are many settings that you can change for picture messaging and text messaging, I will not go into them here because they aren't that important and there are quite a few of them, you'll get bored reading if I do, they are not that important.

You have the usual inbox and outbox where messages are kept and where you can read them at and delete them from.

You can receive broadcast messages about different topics such as football for example or advertiser messages, I leave this off, its annoying to me. You can check your voice mail from the messaging feature too, I usually just dial 121 to find out if I have any messages.

You can create messages, many special characters are included and intelligent text is also included. I leave this feature off as it never guesses correctly what I want to type. You can choose a feature called SMS Chat, I have never used it but I think you will be able to chat through text messages more easily than just writing them, I'm not sure, maybe its cheaper to text this way but it means your only talking to one person at a time.

It takes some time to write a message on this phone. If the next character you wish to write is on the same key as the one you have just written you have to wait a second or two to type the next character. Believe me, its a long time.

Data Folders

The data folders store many pieces of information in the phone, wallpapers, ringtones, pictures you have taken, themes for the phone, yes you can set themes. The themes basically change the colours of the interface of the phone. You can have blue, red, green etc. You can copy files from folders to other existing folders. That's all there is to data folders, the hard drive of your phone you could say.

Organiser

There are a number of different options here such as the currency converter. Important for doing maths homework or if your on holiday abroad :D. I hardly ever use it.

You can create a digital business card on your mobile phone that holds all your data and distribute it over WAP or to other mobile phones, get your business known.

You can enter logs into a scheduler and set alarms to alert you of future events that are important to you. The scheduler has many future years included so you will probably buy a new phone before you run out of scheduler space.

You've got the all important calculator to tackle those difficult sums.

You can set the alarm to wake you up in time to go to work.

You can create voice memos to yourself that you can listen to in the future.

There are infrared options and Bluetooth abilities. Infrared allows you to connect to phones that are opposite and close to your own, you can even connect to laptops and desktops and download the information from your phone, backing up your data.

Bluetooth allows you to connect to phones within a ten metre circle. You both must allow each other to look through your phones. You can browse each others phones and download files off each others phones.

Vodafone

This is basically a list of shortcuts to websites that can be accessed over WAP. Its a pointless feature that I really dont use very much as it costs money and is of no interest to me personally.

Summary
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Its a good solid phone with many features and will do enough for many people. Its nothing special but its good enough for me. I only want a phone to be able to phone my mates and family and be contacted myself.

I have a pay as you go contract with Vodafone. The prices are cheap to other Vodafones but I'm not sure of how much and more expensive to other pay as you go services.

Not good for writing quick messages.

If your looking for a good size phone that's lightweight with many features and a nice looking interface that does enough for anyone who just wants to call other people and be contacted themselves then go for it. But don't buy this phone for its low quality camera, if your after a phone with a good camera, or even a video phone then this phone is not for you. 

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