I had to buy a new phone after I stupidly left mine in a taxi and never got it back, so I went down to car phone warehouse and had a browse round at their phones. I saw a few I liked but I needed one with a decent sized screen, as my eye sight is not that great. I knew what I wanted my phone to have, a decent camera, and also I wanted an android phone. So I finally settled on this one.
Setting up the phone
This is quite easy, you just insert the sim card and memory card in the slots in the back of the phone, then place the battery in, then place the back onto the phone by just pushing it on till it clicks, then you will need to charge it for a few hours, when you first turn the phone on, it will prompt you to set the date and time, so you do not need to look through your settings to do this, but you can alter it through your settings at a later date.
The only thing I find hard about setting up the phone is if you need to take the back off the phone again. It has no thing to press on the back to release it properly, so you have to get your nails under the edge and pull it off, so if you have no nails this can be pretty tricky. Also it is harder when you first buy the phone as it is more stiff to get off, but after a while it does loosen after a bit of taking off.
Making and receiving calls
This is a really easy function with the phone, you can do it by last calls, phone book, or type it in manually. To go through last calls, it is already set up to just press on your main screen, in the bottom left hand corner, you have like a small keypad, you just click on that and your last calls will come up, now for the dialling a number manually I actually struggled to find this, but its actually with your last dialled numbers, you have a thing at the top of your call log to press, after you have pressed that it will go to your number pad, then you just dial the number in. Your phone book, is also set up on your screen in the bottom right, with a little red phone on in a white back ground. Just click on that, then scroll down for the name you are looking for, on the phone book and last call log, you just need to click on the number and it will start to dial the number, on the manual number you need to press the green phone and then it will dial the number for you.
To end a call you need to slide it over to the end call and this will instantly end the call. You do need to be careful when you do this as if they end the call first then you may put your phone on silent which I have done several times as the same slide button also switches your phone to silent when its not in use.
To answer a call you again have to slide the line over to answer or you can slide it over the other way which will reject the call, but it does tell you at either end what its for. You can also silence the ringing, by touching the speaker at the top right of the phone, which I have done before when I do not want to answer and do not want them to know I have ignored them lol.
You can also adjust the in call volume while you are on the phone by tapping the buttons on the side of the phone, I find the phone is just loud enough on full for me to hear everything very clearly, so I always have this set to full.
Messaging
Well this is just like most smart phones, you have a qwerty keyboard and its used in predictive text, which will give you the correct spelling of most words that are used, you can turn this off under settings if you prefer, but I find it easier to use this. If it does not recognize a word you can still use it by just pressing on the word, and then it will store the word in your phone for if you use it again. When you have typed out your message you need to click on add recipient, then it will come up with your phone book, but if it is a number you do not have stored you just type it in manually at the top of the screen, and then click done, and it will take you back to your message then just click send.
I prefer this phone as it stores all your messages from one person in the same place as a conversation, so it is always easier to find messages from one person that you are looking for. The only thing with it is, sometimes you might have loads of messages but want to keep one, so it will take you forever to delete each one separately, but to do this you press down on the message until you get the option up to delete message, or you can delete the full conversation from that person with that option, which is the one I use most.
Camera
The camera on the phone is 3mp which to be honest I thought would be really good, and it is as long as you are using it in a well lit area, the camera does not work very well in a dimly lit place, which I was quite disappointed at as I like to take pictures when I am out at the pub, which they really do not come out well, and they just look dark. The video on this is pretty much the same too, so I bought a separate camera instead lol.
To use th camera is pretty simple though you just click your camera icon to turn it on, then click the photo button at the top to take your picture. the video camera is just the same way but when you load your camera up you need to change it to video at the top of the screen it has the video sign just click that and it will change. All your taken pictures and videos can be found in gallery under your main menu.
Market place
This is already stored into your phone, and is under the menu bar, this is where you can download apps, including games, msn, facebook etc. Facebook and msn are both free and some games are but there are some apps that you do have to pay for, which I am not sure how you pay for them as I have never paid for any yet.
My overall opinion
So far I have never had no problems with this phone, I paid 110 for this but it was cheaper on some other networks but I had to pay that for an O2 phone. The phone is so easy to use, and it is very durable too, I have dropped this a few times, and it has not even got a scratch on it. The only downside with the phone is the camera but I think most phones are like this now, as none of them have flash built it no more. I would recommend buying one of these, I have had it over a year and it is still in good working order, and I have never had any faults with it so far.
