I first got this phone on a contract through Orange. I was a little gutted really because I wanted the Nokia 3510 but they wouldn’t allow me to have it for some reason.
However, when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to say the least!
It is a small, light phone – like most mobiles nowadays. It is simple and very easy to navigate your way around the menus. I found it extremly simple being an avid Nokia lover – so I’m sure a lot of other people could get their heads around it too.
This model has changeable face and back panels called "ClipIt", you can easily change your phones look by using them. Sometimes the phone squeaks when you are holding it due to the panels, but it could be because I am a little heave handed. I did manage to drop mine – at a drunken party – and the cover went everywhere…it protected my phone though and didn’t scratch anything.
They keyboard is convenient by the arrangement and also by the size of the keys. It has an orange coloured backlight...like most modern mobile phones that do not have colour screens.
The A55 comes with 16 polyphonic ringtones with space to download your own from WAP services. I managed to fit 7 downloaded songs in my phone memory…which I thought was quite good. You can also assign different tones to different people in your phone book. I set it so it played a different tone if somebody with an unknown number phoned me…saved me looking at my display!
The quality of the handsfreespeakerphone feature was round about average. I used it once or twice when I was painting my nails and trying to speak to my boyfriend. But I found that I had to have the speakerphone quite close to me otherwise I would find myself shouting across the room so my boyfriend could hear what I was trying to tell him.
There is also a Calling Faces feature, which allowed me to identify callers at a glance by attributing pictures to each phone book entry. My friends thought this was quite handy - especially when using the horrid faces for people we didn't like very much!
Stack Attack – STANDARD GAME - you have to push the blocks with a little man, making rows across the bottom.
Balloon Shooter – STANDARD GAME - you have to shoot the balloons as they fly up the screen, you also get bonus points for hitting envelopes stuck to the bottom of the balloons.
Move the Box – LOGICAL GAME -you have to move the boxes onto the little black dots.
Wacko – you have to whack the little bears that pop up out of holes – but avoid the rabbits otherwise your score will drop!
The games are quite standard really - but if you wanted to play top quality games I think you would probably be better off buying a Gameboy Advance or something like that.
The A55 comes with 5 profiles, 2 that can be customised to your own individual liking – you can even rename them. It also comes with an Aircraft mode, and after playing around with it I realised that the phone was actually disconnected from the network when in this mode.
Text messaging was easy - which is very important to me. I figured out that the number 1 key was the space and not the 0 key. Could get quite confusing if you are used to Nokias, but it was quite simple really when people complained that you put full stops inbetween every word!
You can enter words into the dictionary that is quite handy and you also have the T9 system (predictive text). I also found this quite useful but you really have to check your messages before you send them – well I did anyway as I sometimes forgot that different words came up before the ones I actually wanted!
I think that rounds my op up really..there isn't anything else I can think of saying about this phone.
It's cheap to buy, fun and practical.
My brother has now inherited mine…I have decided to part with it and try a Panasonic X70. So be expecting my review soon!
I would recommend this phone to anyone…it has been my best value phone by far!!!
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Jul 2nd, 2004
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