Great phone!
Written: Apr 26 '02 (Updated Nov 23 '02)
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Pros: Lightweight, solid, large phonebook, voice activation, small size, neat features (see review)
Cons: Voice activation, small keys, poor battery life (after 24 hours, 5 calls it is dead).
The Bottom Line: Great phone, lightweight, easy to use, best phone on the market IMO. Poor battery life is the biggest complaint.
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| gpgardner's Full Review: Panasonic Allure EB-TX310 (Silver) |
I just purchased this phone about a month ago to replace a broken Nokia 8260. I thought that phone was very good, but the Allure is steps ahead.
For one, the Allure is much more solid than the Nokia was. I have dropped it once, unfortunately, but the phone is as good as the day I bought it. It is a tight package, unlike the Nokia which felt hollow when held in your hand.
The Allure is lightweight and compact. It fits well in your pocket, the only limitation being the external antenna. This hardly gets in the way however.
The real turn on to this phone for me was the phonebook capabilities which are far superior to the Nokia's. With the Allure, you can store up to four separate phone numbers organized by business, home, cell and other, under a single name. To select a number, all one must do is scroll to the desired name, press the send button, then scroll to the desired number and press send again. This extra bit of scrolling is not annoying at all because it greatly reduces the size of the phonebook. I found myself scrolling endlessly with the Nokia, even when using the search function. Part of the phonebook is voice activation. To describe this feature in one word, I would have to say it is "neat". It works fairly well, is easy to set up, and is just...cool. I have tried using this feature on the freeway, on downtown roads, in a room alone and in a room with other people. The only situation where the voice activation does not ever work is on the freeway. The road noise is just too much. Obviously, the phone recognizes your voice better as the background noise decreases.
There are other little features that really set this phone apart. Things such as pauses and waits in stored phone numbers, which allow you to dial a phone number, tell the phone to pause and then key in additional numbers. This is useful for checking voice mail. You can store the voice mail number, tell the phone to pause, then put in your password, so all one has to do is hit the key to check your messages and the phone does the rest. (Hope that isn't too confusing!)
In conclusion, this is the best phone I have seen. I think it is much more "mature" than any of the Nokia's I've seen. The Allure doesn't need weird ring tones, faceplates and all that (although you can download ring tones, backgrounds and the background color is selectable) to be great. It has useful SMART features that make it easy to use and practical. Highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
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Epinions.com ID:
gpgardner
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 2 members
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