Polymorphic Ringtones, Color Images, and a Flashlight... oh my!
Written: Jan 26 '04 (Updated Jan 27 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Clarity: |
 |
|
| Portability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: color, games, good sound quality, lightweight.
Cons: screen is hard to see w/o backlight, thick. Area codes needed.
The Bottom Line: It has all the functions you need and more (like a flashlight)!
|
|
|
| pinkskittle's Full Review: Kyocera KE424C Cellular Phone |
To start, I didn't pick this phone myself. My old phone started doing weird things and I had 4 months left in my 2-year extended warranty, so I traded it in. This is the phone they gave me. The price I listed is what the store was charging for it, but I didn't pay for it.
I must say the switch was a nice one. I went from a black and blue, black-and-white (screen) clunker to a silver color-screen beauty.
Dimensions and things
-Size:
4.45 in x 1.89 in x .91 in (113 mm x 48 mm x 23 mm)
-Weight:
3.52 ounces (100 grams)
-Appearance:
silver with blue backlit keypad.
The Battery
Talk Time: 3.5 Hrs.
Standby Time: 180 Hrs.
Functions
-instead of regular digital, this phone uses high-speed digital. If your service provider does not provide high-speed digital, or if you're in an area where it's not accessible, the phone will go to regular digital or analog.
-Speed Dial: Most phones will automatically put all your contacts into a speed dial, but on this phone, you have to tell it to put your contacts into speed dial.
-1-Touch Dialing. Instead of having to press send after your speed dial number, just press and hold the number it's stored as and the phone will just dial. Cuts out the "send" or "talk" button. Not very exciting.
-1-Touch Voicemail. This phone uses the #1 key to access your voicemail. Just press and hold the 1 key and it dials up your voicemail. You can also access your messages when the "you have messages" is on the screen. There's an option to "call," and when that option is chosen, your voicemail is called. You can get your phone to light up or play a tune, or beep every 5 minutes to remind you that you have messages.
-Keypad locking. To lock the keypad (to prevent numbers being pressed or dialed accidentally in your pocket or purse), just hold down the back button. Then hit 123 to use your phone normally. I find this extremely useful since it's not a flip-phone (where the flip would cover the keypad).
-Roaming Alert. The phone can alert you when you're going outside of your normal service range (and usually extra fees apply when you roam). There is also a roaming ringer. You can set up a separate ringer when an incoming call is subject to roaming charges. You can set up the phone to remind you when you try making a roaming call or answer a roaming call.
Entering contacts.
-Not only can you enter up to 200 numbers (who knows that many people?!), but you can assign ringtones to them so when they call, you hear that assigned tone.
-You can assign animated pictures (mostly cartoon faces) that appear on the screen when that person calls.
-Add home, work, mobile, pager, fax numbers to a single contact name. Add email, street, and web addresses to your contacts. You can also add notes about your contacts.
-Voice dial.
-Choose a speed dial number.
-Make the number secret (you have to enter a security code to see the number or edit it).
-Add codes for extension numbers and international calling codes.
-Finally, you can classify the contact as a personal or business contact (you can assign ringtones to whether it's a personal call or business call).
Frequent List and Fast Find
-when you open your contact list, it will show you your most accessed numbers at the top (if you want).
-When using the search function, you can use Fast Find to only enter in a few letters of the name and it will come up with all the names starting with those few letters. I suppose this comes in handy if you use all 200 of your contacts!
Supports text messaging
-You can include pictures (you can draw pictures on the phone, send downloaded ones, or use emoticons: smiley faces, etc), sounds, and prewritten text in your messages.
-There's about 17 different samples of prewritten text, for example, "Please call me," "I'm at...," "Have a great day!," "Busy," and "Where are you?" You can add more of your own and edit these.
-Not all phones let you send all these things, it depends your your carrier. Mine only lets me send emoticons and pre-written text.
-add a signature to all your messages.
-set priorities to outgoing messages (ie. Urgent). If you receive an urgent message on your phone, it shows up as bold in your list of messages.
-Prepend the message to go out at a scheduled time.
-Request that the receiving phone lets you know that they've gotten your message (A note will come up on your screen saying that your message has been received).
-If you answer a call while typing a message, the message automatically goes into your "Saved" file.
-Mass messaging. You can store 5 groups of 10 contacts so if you need to send a message to an entire group, you don't have to retype every single message.
Sounds
In the silent mode, you can choose the phone to
-vibrate only
-vibrate with lights (choose different light patterns, ie. it can light up to a heartbeat rhythm).
-vibrate for 10 seconds then ring.
-lights only
-ringer
-If the phone is charging, it will always ring (even if you're in silent mode).
The ringer:
-20 polyphonic ringtones.
-as mentioned earlier, you can use different ringers for different contacts. You can also just use different ringers for either business or personal contacts.
-New ringers can be downloaded. Under "games and fun" there's an option to get new ringers and images, and when selected takes you to your carrier's downloading webpage.
Personalizing
-set your phone to display different languages. Since I'm in Canada, mine does French and English. In the States it may also do Spanish, I'm not sure.
-Change your phone's banner. That's the thing you see on your phone when it's not doing anything. The default is usually your carrier's name. Right now I have mine set to mine and my husbands first names.
-wallpaper. Set an image to the background of your main screen (where the banner is). You can download these or use the ones that come with the phone (5 of them).
-color scheme. Choose from 4 (white with blue, mostly orange, mostly blues, mostly purples).
-choose different time/day formats.
Other Stuff
-Receive faxes and other data.
-Connect to your laptop/PC (need separate cable).
-Switch between phone lines if you have more than one line.
-connect to a TTY/TTD device for the hearing impared.
-Emergency services can track your location if you call 911. You also have the option of allowing your service provider to see your location (I have no idea why they'd need to know where you are though!)
-Using a headset, use voice dial without having to hit any buttons, completely hands-free. Train the phone to wake up when you tell it to wake up. Then say the name of the person you want to call.
-use voice commands to answer a call if you have a headset (or you can set it to answer after a few seconds of ringing).
Tools
-Calculator
-Tip Calculator (enter the bill amount, choose a percentage, and it tells you how much you should tip. You also have the option of splitting the bill. After you give it the bill amount and percentage, enter in how many people there are and it calculates how much each person's bill is).
-Scheduler (with alarms).
-Alarm clock.
-Timer.
-Stopwatch.
-Flashlight. Yes, flashlight.
-web browser.
Games!
-Tetris (save games!)
-Brick Attack (you have a bunch of blocks you need to hit with a ball, bouncing it off a paddle.)
-Doodler. Draw pictures.
What I liked
-I absolutely love this phone. At first I didn't like the look of it. My husband said it reminded him of a Power Ranger (for those of you who don't know what a Power Ranger is, see www.rangercentral.com).
-The blue backlighting is very pretty on the keypad.
-The color screen is so much nicer than grayscale (or even the plain blue and black screens).
-Tetris!
-The ringtones are fun, downloading new ones was even more fun (I got a James Bond one, and a No Doubt song).
-The sound quality is quite good. I haven't had much chance to hear what it sounds like on the other end of the phone, but on the phone's end, it's quite clear.
-You can get the phone to automatically adjust to your sound condition. It will increase volume if your surrounding area is loud and decrease volume when your environment is quiet.
-smaller and lighter than my last phone.
-silver!
Stuff I don't like
-If you have nails like me, it's a little hard to play Tetris... I mean make business calls :)
-My downloaded ringtones are quite quiet (but that's not really the phone's fault).
-As mentioned earlier, my husband thinks it looks like a Power Ranger.
-Without backlighting (which uses lots of battery), you can't see what's on the phone's screen at all.
-In order for your phone to show the contact name (instead of the phone number only) on incoming/missed calls, you need to enter the area code on all numbers on your contacts list.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 114
Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
pinkskittle
|
|
Member: jenn
Reviews written: 44
Trusted by: 3 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.