The most important quality for any phone is reception. My home lies in reception limbo. From televisions, radios, to cells, reception (for all but the most powerful signals, like the radio station you can still pick up in your car, hundreds of miles away)is spotty to nonexistant. My former Sprint (Nokia)phone... More
The most important quality for any phone is reception. My home lies in reception limbo. From televisions, radios, to cells, reception (for all but the most powerful signals, like the radio station you can still pick up in your car, hundreds of miles away)is spotty to nonexistant. My former Sprint (Nokia)phone had me walking halfway down the block, phone @ an odd angle. This phone must be a signal magnet! The reception is crystal clear, even in our dead zones. I can make and receive calls with as much reliability and clarity as with a land line. Text messages just zip right on out. Once I was the recipient of a dropped call, but it was the other person's cell, not mine.
This is a GSM phone, which means it works worldwide (unlike many US phones). This means that if I travel outside of the United States, I can pick up a prepaid SIM card, put the chip in the back of the phone, and no international roaming charges! Outgoing calls are much less expensive, and in most countries, incoming calls are free! I have a SIM chip in my phone now, so I just swap it out.
I refilled the SIM card online with T-mobile prepaid, and am really happy with it. I paid $119.00 for 1000 minutes (10 cents/text msg over a certain amount). That's it. Not a cent more. No daily minimum charges as with Verizon prepaid, no 1st call surcharges, as with Boost mobile (Virgin)prepaid.
The telephone is small enough to hide behind 2 bic lighters, and can be worn on a wrist strap, as with a watch. If you have wireless internet service, it can be used as a browser, with 10 bookmark slots available. You can divert your calls to voicemail, another number, as well as restrict certain incoming/outgoing calls. It has a calculator, calendar with schedule alarm reminders, a currency converter with rate of exchange setting. Something costs 15 Euros? No problem. Whip out your phone and see the price is $18.768 American dollars! It has call waiting, last number redial, hold, call transfer, conference call, loud and clear ringtones & text message alert (with or without vibrate), compose your own melody for ringtones, etc, change the display language, present user phone answering messages with additional slots to place your own, phone lock, keyguard, speed dial, quick hands-free select, bandwidth select (different for the US, Canada & parts of South America than what is used for the rest of the world). There is even a game (sort of like the one where you guess which hole something is going to pop out & try to be quick enough to bop it). Lots of bells and whistles here. And it recharges really quickly.
So it doesn't have a camera. My PDA has a camera. I have a couple of cameras. How often do I need to take pictures unexpectedly? If I know I'm going to take pictures, I take a camera. Better resolution.
The one drawback is the size of the text on the screen. At one point this wouldn't have been a problem for my 20/10 vision. Now I have joined the growing number of people who need reading glasses. I do need reading glasses to read the text. Without, I guess at the names on my phone list. I have read a text message, then had to read it again with glasses on. I always have to wear them to send one. However, would this be more appropriate for a review of my vision than the cell? Anyway, adjustable text size would have been a definate plus.
Panasonic discontinued this phone. I have no idea why, as it is better than my past Nokia and Motorola phones. Then again, one only has to look at some televion series cancellations (Firefly, Surface, Threshold) to see that executives often make bad decisions. I'm going to keep this phone for as long as possible. As it's sturdy, this shouldn't be a problem.
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