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Looking for a simple cell phone
Janin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The G&T cellphone thread is unavailable, so posting in here. I'd like an AT&T-compatible cell phone that is not all-singing, all-dancing because I just get confused when trying to use it. Most of the cell-phone review sites I can find are full of glowing reviews for one company's products, so I come to you.
Features I want:
Features I do not want:
Features I want:
- Works for AT&T/Cingular, as said above.
- Covered-buttons style. Having to lock the keyboard before putting in my pocket is a pain.
- Ringtones in a reasonable format. Vorbis or MP3 would be really nice, MIDI is acceptable, having to hunt down a shareware media converter is not.
- A normal data cable. The phone I use now has some bizarro cable that is apparently only made for that style of phone, very hard to find, requires a special driver to work (for a CABLE), and cost like thirty fucking dollars.
- Sane data transfer. If the phone acts like a USB mass storage device, I love you forever. Requiring a special program/protocol is only acceptable if it's commonly available for download and easy to use. Having spent almost two days hunting down a data transfer program that worked for my current one sucked.
- Able to set a special ringtone for a specific number. Not a must-have, but would be very nice, and I hear some phones can do this.
- Backlit numbers, for use at night.
Features I do not want:
- External camera buttons. I understand it's almost impossible to find a modern phone without camera, so I'll settle for this. My current phone has a camera button on the side, and it often gets set off in my pocket with a loud, annoying "cha-click".
- Giant screen. I want to keep my battery for phone calls, and a 5-inch full-color screen does nothing but suck power and bulk pockets.
- Giant keyboard, ditto. 10 numbers is enough for me. QWERTY, go home.
- External antennae, ugly and mine have a tendency to break off.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Very nice. I'll see if it's available; this is for one of those "rent us your soul for two more years and get fancy phone" deals, so it might just be the newer phones.
Your Pros:
-Works on AT&T (And probably cheap - I paid $80 with 2-year plan a year ago)
-Slider-phone with very sturdy slider tha completely covers keypad when shut. Can make calls with slider extended or contracted.
-Ringtones can be in MP3, but only encoded up to 192kb/s
-Data cable is USB but requires drivers (which are included). Phone can also do Bluetooth syncing with your computer very easily. Oh, and the USB cable came free with my phone, though this will vary carrier to carrier (I got mine on Rogers in Canada).
-You do need to use the included software (Samsung PC Studio) to do data transfers to your phone, but you can store anything you want on the phone in the "Misc Files" folder. I used mine as a mass storage device quite often.
-You can set individual ringtones for every number, as well as individual photos/images that pop up with the caller ID.
-Numbers are backlit
Your Cons:
-It has a 4-way D-pad that has a camera button default on it. These buttons are reconfigurable, though, and even if you don't reconfigure, there's a 3 button combo you have to hit in a certain order to activate the D-pad when the phone isn't slid open. The phone has never slid open in my pocket when I didn't want it to.
-It does have a big screen, probably around 2.5", but battery life does not suffer. I usually only charge mine once every 4 or 5 days on my one year old battery, and I use it fairly often (screen with backlight activated about 5 minutes a day, 15 minutes of calling a day).
-Keyboard is very small and compact. It is a bit tough to feel the buttons at first, but you get used to it quickly.
-No external antenna. The phone is absolutely tiny when slid closed, and extremely thin. I love it to pieces.
Here are some other points about the phone that I feel need mentioning:
-Sturdy as hell. I have had the phone for a year and a month and I have a single scratch on it. Granted, it gets its own pocket that is never occupied by other sharp objects, but I have put it through some tests by mistake. A good example: Once, when I accidentally held the phone up to my ear while in speakerphone mode, I reflexively threw my phone at the sidewalk with all my might when someone spoke to me and almost ruptured my eardrum. The phone bounced and landed in the grass a few feet away. I was terrified it would be broken, but when I picked it up it had a tiny (1/16") scratch on the LCD and no harm at all to the plastic body. Two months later and it still works beautifully.
-Though it has an MP3 player, do not bank on this being a useful feature. No playlists, shitty controls on the single playlist and really terrible proprietary headphones (with proprietary headphone jack). Do not get this phone if you want an MP3 player.
Based on the criteria you gave, I suggest you go to your local AT&T store and fondle the phone a bit. I think you'll really like it.
Yeah, that's why I specifically mentioned that the MP3 player is useless and did not use it as a selling point for the phone. In fact, I tailored the post in such a way that it was the most negative thing about the phone.
I only recommended trying out the phone because I generally like to try stuff out before making a purchase, mostly to see how it fits in my hands. If you're comfortable not doing that, it is by no means necessary.
You might have to hack the phone a little to allow USB transfers, but it's pretty simple.
http://hacktherazr.com/guides.html
It has all the other features you want, though.
And yes, P2K Commander (the semi-hack application) sucks ass.
I toss my vote that way.
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Absolute best feature on the w600i is the flashlight.I used to use that all the time.
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