SCP-3810, the latest offering by Sanyo is an entry level handset with minimal features. All it can do is make calls and send text messages. Sanyo was bought by Kyocera in late September 2007 for about 50 billion yen ($435 million) because Sanyo couldn’t stand the stiff competition offered by other manufacturers. But Sanyo hasn’t lost its roots, the style and design has been the same in the phones. Being an entry level phone it can do only calling and it is pretty good at it with the great call quality. If you are a multimedia enthusiast or want data features in your handset you will have to look else where. The SCP-3810 costs $249 but if you buy it with the service, it is free after a $50 mail-in rebate. The features of the handset is pretty basic, it has a tiny display, few PIM features like countdown timer, stopwatch, world clock, alarm, calculator. It does have a camera but the quality is really bad. There is no music player and the phone has average battery life. It has GPS, which  [...]

The Samsung Instinct HD is a smart phone which is comfortable to hold and feels solid in the hand. Its 3.2 inch screen has a resolution up to 480X320. Colors are vibrant and bright. Its touch interface is responsive and quick to work. The handset has the capability to switch between a right and left handed orientation and you can also adjust the touch sensitivity. The intensity can also be changed and deactivated also. There is a proximity sensor which automatically locks the handset from accidental touches when you are on a call. InstinctHD has the same menu interface which we saw on previous instinct phone. It has an option to display the menu items in List and Tiles format. The tiles view display the thumbnails of the photo and you don’t need to open the photo gallery for this. The Menu choices can be arranged by using the "Faves" option. It also offers the facility to rearrange the menu choices or delete them. The "Web" Menu gives you  [...]

Samsung Convoy SCH-U640 is a rugged phone and will lock horns with Motorola Barrage which has a similar design. The phone can take water, there is protection around for this but it makes the phone look a bit boring. We had Sonim XP3 Quest cell phone in our test centers, which could take shocks and water. However, the loads of rubber padding around the phone made it look very ugly. This device is cannot take shocks and water like the Sonim counter part, but will survive occasional accidents. Considering the features it offers, we think this is a good mid range phone, it has a 2 mega pixel camera, music player, GPS and 3G. The phone isn’t costly; it costs about $99 with service and after the $50 mail in rebate. The handset has a clamshell design which looks cool but we all know that clamshell phones have lubricants between the hinges which dry out after which opening and closing the lid isn’t easy. However, if you intend to use the handset only for about 1-2 years, you need not worry  [...]

Cricket communications has given us a good number of messaging cell phones like Cricket TXTM8 and Motorola Hint QA30. They are back here with another messaging device – the Cricket MSGM8. The design of these messaging phones is a bit boring and hence they are preferred more by the business men than the youth. The latter prefer super fast touch screen smart phones with high end features like 5 MP, fully functional music player, GPS, etc. However, there are people who don’t need all these features, all they need is good messaging features on a handset which will let them check e-mails while on the move. The MSGM8 caters to such kind of people. We won’t call the MSGM8 a smart phone because of the lack of features, and it is just an entry level smart phone. The handset doesn’t have anything that we haven’t seen yet, the display is small, the camera is really outdated, the keyboard could have been better. The phone has 2.5 mm head phone jack. We would have preferred a 3.5 mm jack so  [...]