Sendo S300

...She surprised me with the Sendo S300. At an amazing price of £19.95 from Woolworth's. I looked and felt great but sad, as it does not have all the benefits of polyphonic ring tones or colour screen or built in camera. What do I expect for less than twenty pounds? Upon opening the box I was presented with a rather smart looking phone the colour of mine is ink blue, A Virgin mobile sim card and joining pack, along with a phone charger.

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...or functions at all. But Sendo proved me wrong, it’s not a state of the art mobile. But it does offer all that I want, add to that the price and I am more than happy.

Its quite a good looking phone, mine is ink blue in colour it weighs only 81g.

The dimensions of the phone are 108mm x 47mm x 21mm, so it fits quite nicely in my coat pocket. Although not the smallest of phones it is a very good size for me, the buttons ... more

My life with mobile phones has been varied, I tend to use them mainly for texting. But one thing I manage to do is drop them. I had and still do have a Nokia, this poor thing suffered when I dropped it in a puddle. The result being a phone that although sort of still works, the screen only works when it feels like it. My better half bless her said I needed a new phone. She surprised me with the Sendo S300. At an amazing price of £19.95 from Woolworth's. I looked and felt great but sad, as it does not have all the benefits of polyphonic ring tones or colour screen or built in camera. What do I expect for less than twenty pounds? Upon opening the box I was presented with a rather smart looking phone the colour of mine is ink blue, A Virgin mobile sim card and joining pack, along with a phone charger.

After reading the Virgin joining pack I realised that I would also get £5.00 of calling credit with the phone, that made the phone less than £15 add to that the charger and the phone was really exceptionally cheap. Then text messaging from one virgin mobile to another is only 3p per text rather than the 10p at present. Now for some maths (all my own work).

Text 10p my usual cost, 3p if virgin to virgin saving 7p per text. £5 credit normally is 50 texts but virgin to virgin I would get 166 at 3p at the normal rate of 10p this would cost £16.60. Take £16.60 from the cost of the phone and it means a new phone and charger had cost me £3.35. Then a £10 top up would give me 322 texts, that's over ten a day for a month.

As my partner is the person I text most of the time, I thought get her one of these phones and we will save some serious money over the course of the year. If the worst should happen and I bust the phone then we will not have spent money; instead we will and are in pocket. Although she has a much posher phone, we both text each other using these phones.

For the price I really expected it to be basic well very basic without any features or functions at all. But Sendo proved me wrong, it’s not a state of the art mobile. But it does offer all that I want, add to that the price and I am more than happy.

Its quite a good looking phone, mine is ink blue in colour it weighs only 81g.

The dimensions of the phone are 108mm x 47mm x 21mm, so it fits quite nicely in my coat pocket. Although not the smallest of phones it is a very good size for me, the buttons are easy to use, not too small and fiddly. Regarding the size overall, not too small to be misplaced or awkward to use, not too big to be ugly. I am also very glad that the antenna is inbuilt, in the past I have had problems with phones and antennas.

The screen size is 96x64 pixels. It has a green backlight I find that this is brighter than some mobiles and more than bright enough for me even at night. It displays five rows of text, this is pretty much standard and ample for most users.

Sending Text messages is very easy, A very simple procedure from the main screen select menu (the green button), this brings up messages, then select (Green again). To write a message highlight send (using the up and down scroll arrows) then select (Green again). Highlight new (using the up and down scroll arrows) then select (Green again). Now you can either tap the relevant key the correct amount of times until you get the desired letter or you can use predictive text. For those who have never used predictive, you just select the key for each letter in a group, but you only press it the once. For instance for the word PHONE, without predictive you would press the following sequence 7(P), 44(H), 666(O), 66(N), 33(E). Using predictive it would be 7(P), 4(H), 6(O), 6(N), 3(E). The phone would then predict the word for you. Some sequences do have more than one choice i.e. HOME and GOOD, in this case you press the 0 key to choose the choice you want. Other times the phone does not come up with the choice you want, then you have to press the * key to select the non predictive option and input it the manual way. Nokia phones have the option of adding words and storing them in their memory, this is one let down with this phone, as it does not have this option.
You can also insert smiley faces or retrieve/save messages. Other options include read, delete. All of these are as described above. I am trying not too bore readers as with a little playing the phone soon becomes second nature in its use.

Making calls, again very easy to do, enter the number using the numeric keypad then press the green button, your display shows call over the green button which is a help. You can also store numbers in the phones memory. A very simple procedure from the main screen select Contacts (the red button), then scroll to add new (using the up and down scroll arrows) then select (Green). Enter the phone number you want to save then OK (Green again). Enter the name, then OK (Green again). and that is saved.
To call the number you have saved, from the main screen select Contacts (the red button), then scroll to search (using the up and down scroll arrows) then select (Green). Then scroll to name you want to call (using the up and down scroll arrows) then call (Green). It really is as simple as that.
It is also worth noting that the phone will automatically list the saved numbers in alphabetical order.
Also from the start menu you select the up and down arrow keys, then you will be taken straight to your phone book, then just scroll and call as above.

Clock..
Very simple again, navigate through this phone using red and green buttons with the up and down arrow keys, from messages scroll to settings, here you can set the date and time as well as input a time to set the alarm if required, once set even if you switch the phone off, the alarm will still go off and of course it does have the very handy snooze feature.
Other functions on the settings menu are languages, auto redial, auto answer, any key answer and security.

Sounds..
Here you have some choices to personalise the ringer. The phone has 50 pre set tones and using the composer you can add a further 5. The composer is good as it has the choice of inputting either by graphic (sheet music) or by text.
You have five choices of volume loud, medium, low, ascending or mute.
Key tones can be either off, on or DTMF (different sounds on different key presses).
Vibrator can be on, off or vibrate first then ring.
Events, here you can select how you want to be informed of a new message, low battery or new broadcast.
The phone even has an equaliser that allows treble, normal or bass. To be truthful, I can’t tell the difference, but a nice touch all the same.

Extras..
Here you find the four games on this phone they are

Ten Pin, a ten pin bowling game, knock down the skittles and see if you will see the turkey!

Flippit, A strange game, you have to make the counters change from white to black, when you select a counter, the ones around it also change, I will not spoil this for you by saying exactly what happens, I found it frustrating and fun and do not want to spoil it for anyone else.

Splash, this is my favourite time wasting game. You have to get a complete pipe from one end to the other before the water flows through the pipe, very easy at first but it does get harder, all in all very enjoyable, probably on par with Nokia’s snake game for playability. IT could do with a high score table, but that is only a minor gripe.

Quaddro, Well it is connect four against the mobile phone, playable and fairly challenging.

Locking the keypad..

This I nearly forgot to mention very simple to lock and unlock, but can save you from calls if the phone is in your pocket or handbag. Simply press Green button then *, that locks and unlocks it.

Charging..

Simply plug the charger into the mains socket and then place the pin into the bottom of the phone. The first time you charge it the manufacturers recommend a 12 hour minimum charge. I have found the recharging time varies, but never seems to be more than a couple of hours and once charged the phone will last me a week before it needs charging again.

To be honest the above is about all I use this phone for. But to try and give you an idea of other functions that this phone has to offer I will give you some more details.

I have already mentioned how to navigate through this phone using red and green buttons with the up and down arrow keys, one other key to remember is “C” this is simply cancel and either deletes a text letter or number or will take you back to a previous menu.

Below the green key is one with what looks like a piece of paper, pressing this takes you to the virgin extra page. I have never used any of the choices here but they are; Top-up, help, shop, offers, travel, music, going out, staying in. This can also be accessed via the main menu and selecting virgin extras.

Services..

Here are the following choices; commands, network selection, send number, cost/timers, divert and call waiting. None of these I have used or changed.

So as you can see for the price of this phone you really are getting a very good deal, if it breaks it would be cheaper to buy a new one than get it repaired. We are even toying with the idea of buying another one of these just to keep as a spare.

 

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