♥ thank you for reading and rating! more reviews coming soon! shocked I got money from the pr...
♥ thank you for reading and rating! more reviews coming soon! shocked I got money from the premium fund - thanks ciao!! ♥♥
Member since:26.02.2005
Reviews:63
Members who trust:62
For the record, this is phone 5 out of 6, thought I have bought in the last three years. Thats an average of 2 a year!
Phone number one was a Philips Savvy (which broke), two was a Sagem MW20 (which I wanted to upgrade), so I got a Sagem myx2(which started playing up after just a few months). When the camera phone was invented, I decided I had to have one, so I bought the Siemens MC60, which I came to regret as it was so slow and the cmera was terrible.
My sister (beatlesgal25) ,being the nice person she is, gave me this phone - the panasonic gd87. All was well for 6 months, but then the trouble started and I could tell phone 6 would soon be on its way(my new Motorola V220).
Ease of use ========= Very easy to use. No need for a instruction booklet. I find the best way to learn how to use a new phone is to experiment and play around. I feel you can get to grips much easier. It took me less than a day to learn how to use the gd87 to its full potential.
Look & Feel ========= The gd87 is a silvery-grey colour and it has a very smooth feel, and looks sleek and stylish. On the
front there is a small lcd display with the time, battery, and reception quality. There is also a small mirror and button so that the more vain of us can take self portraits of ourselves when the phone is closed. The phone is quite a bit bigger than normal flip phone and when open is practically flat (not at an angle like most other phones). The small lcd screen on the front can also be changed to three different colours (Orange, Blue and Green) for different applications e.g. blue for calls, green for messages. This makes it easier to see what is going on. Without having to open the phone.
When the phone is opened it makes a little 'clicky' noise. How nice. You will immediately see the extremely large TFT screen, which in my opinion is the best screen I have ever seen on a phone. It is so large that 8 lines of text can be displayed on it with soft key options along the bottom.
The key pad is well spaced out and the keys are comfortable to press. The keypad backlight is a nice green colour. Still looking at the keypad, in addition to the normal number keys are two 'soft keys' , the left is pre-determined and will take you to the phonebook and the right can be personalised to where-ever you choose.
Durability
= Excellent except for the battery. This was the only part that got scratched which is amazing as I can't recall the countless number of times I dropped this on the floor.
Reception quality ============= This can be quite quiet at times and often the sound breaks up (don't know the reason for this). I had constant trouble trying to hear in noisy environments like a college classroom(!) or walking along busy roads. Best to use when quiet.
Battery ===== Excellent battery time. I charged mine every 3/4 days depending on what I had been using my phone for. If you are just using the SMS function then it should last around 5 days! Also it only takes a short time to charge too.
Value for money ============ My sister bought this from Ebay so I'm not really sure how much she payed for it. I think it was around the £60-70 mark. Before I had trouble with the phone I would have said it was worth the money, but if I could turn back time (If I could find a way - cher) I would have never set my eyes (or hands) on this phone.
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Features ======= By pressing 'OK' (the centre circular button) you will be taken to the menu where 9 options are available: * Camera - This was Panasonic's first camera phone. The camera is of excellent quality and has 4 modes (Full Colour, Black and White, Sepia and Negative) It also features a digital zoom so you can get right up close without standing on top of them, Night Shot Mode ( for night picture taking I presume.lol) and a framing function with around 10 different frames to choose from. Lucky us! Pictures can be saved to be used as screensavers or sent to friends and family via the MMS function.
*Phonebook - Up to 200 contacts can be stored on this phone! Each contact can have up to 3 phone numbers and 2 email addresses saved to it (to make it easier you can put icons by each number e.g. work, home so you can tell them apart. Great if you have a terrible memory for numbers like me. Pictures can be saved to contacts, that will pop up when a call from them is recieved. Contacts can be put into groups which can then be given a colour, for the LCD screen on the front.
*Browser - Or WAP as we more commonly know it. It depends on your service provider as to what you can do. I am on virgin mobile and there is not much of interest on Virgin Mobile WAP at the moment.
*Phone Options - As the name implies all the phone options are here. Call timers, network settings and security settings(such as Pin's and phone lock) are placed here.
*Schedule - A great little calendar to store all your important appointments in month form. An alarm can also be set to remind you of the appointment.
*Games - Only one game is available.As the phone is made by Orange, and my service provider is Virgin, I can't download anymore games onto the phone.
*Applications - In this category there is a calculator (very easy to use - using the navigation key and numbers), an alarm clock(using any ringtone), the time can be changed from digital to analogue, a dictaphone you can use to record about 10 seconds of sound, and Infra-Red. By turning this on you can send and recieve data for free with other Infra-Red users, if they are close enough in range. I found this extremely useful as it saved me lots of money. There is also a currency converter which I'm not sure how you were supposed to use.
*Personalise - Choose your own wallpaper, change your ringtone or message tone(choose from 16 polyphonic tones, write your own or download them), you can also set a screensaver. There are some nearly hidden settings such as the time of the internal display backlighting, the colours of the external display and adjusting of contrast here.
*Messages - SMS, MMS and Email. SMS and MMS are easy-peasy to use. The SMS uses T9 predictive text but you can't add words to the dictionary which is a downside. You can also use the keypress method if you prefer. With MMS you can send pictures with text and sound. The E-mail function is a little more complicated and I could never get it to work on mine.
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As I have said, the only problem I have with this phone is the fact that, after a few months of working brilliantly, it decided to go crazy on me. Sending and recieving a message or even answering a call would automatically switch my phone off and then back on again. Although this doesn't sound that annoying to you, it was very inconvienient as the phone takes an age to load back up. Contacting many phone guru's, I found out that this happens with all gd87's and is a problem with the manufacturers who made this phone. Looking around the internet I have discovered that this happens to 90% of people with gd87's and there is nothing you can do to stop it happening. So in the Tesco phone recycling bag it went (see how good I am) and here we are with phone number 6, with fingers crossed.
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So how do I sum this up?? The phone is excellent, with a brilliant camera and great features. But it is inevitable that it will break at sometime in its short life. I dont really know whether to tell you to buy it or not (thats why I gave it the three stars) so it's up to your own judgement if you want to get it.
Thanks for reading.
Pictures of Panasonic GD87
open phone
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I bought this phone as soon as it came out and was resonably happy with it. However i experienced the 'freezing' problems with it and i found that the battery life was really really bad...after a year it got to the stage where i had to charge it every day!!!
stepho222 29.08.2005 19:35
lovely looking phone good review
elle2 14.07.2005 23:15
i had the same problem with mine when i made calls very strainge phone looks alright though. nice review. elle
Advantages: screen display, good picture quality, tough and durable clamshell design Disadvantages: sometimes awkward with the navigation key, not Java enabled
glen.bolton 08.11.2003 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Panasonic GD87
May 6th, 2005
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