You'll be Sorry.....
Written: Nov 16 '02
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Pros: Small, lightweight, lots of features
Cons: Reception,scratches easily, voice commands are a joke
The Bottom Line: If you want features to play with buy this phone. If you want to talk to someone on the other end, buy something else.
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| badacting's Full Review: Panasonic Allure EB-TX310 (Silver) |
I really wanted to like this phone. I really did. When I decided to give Verizon the boot and switch to AT&T (because of far more prime time minutes per $) I looked at what AT&T offered for phones....and, to tell you the truth, I didn't really like any of them. After much thought and hemming and hawing I broke down and bought the Allure. It is a pretty phone with lots of features-voice commands, programmable ring tones, 2 way messaging and on and on and...
I wanted to like this phone. But the phone did not cooperate with my desire in this regard. The silver finish is just that- a finish. The silver color is not the color of the plastic. It is just a finish on the surface of the plastic. SHHHEEEESH! Come on, Panasonic! Do you think you could spare it??? The slightest scratch shows up the color of the underlying plastic.
The voice activated dialing is a joke. Hey Panasonic! This was your idea of a joke, right??? My old Audiovox 9000 (god how I loved that phone) had decent voice activated dialing. So maybe I'm spoiled because the Allures voice dialing is for all reasonable intents and purposes UNUSABLE. Even Panasonic hinted at the problem when, in the instruction manual, they advise to use the included headset to record the voice commands. Great. Except if you then try to USE the voice commands without the headset it doesn't work. What a cruel joke. Do you really want to be tied to the headset and look like one of those geeks that walks around the airport talking to him (or her) self???
Did I mention that the sound through the phones earpiece is tinny? Did I mention that callers complain about the way YOU sound on their end?
The real clincher for me was the phones lack of signal strength. During the 4 months I used the Allure its signal strength and call holding ability slowly degraded to the point where I called the techs at Panasonic to ask, "What gives"? I was told that the phone was probably checking out of the picture. A PANASONIC engineer... did you hear that?... I said a PANASONIC ENGINEER told me that their reference phone in testing is the Nokia 6160i because it was the best phone they could find in signal holding ability. He further told me that the Allure has about 80 percent of the signal holding capability of the Nokia 6160i.
Well that was enough for me. I got the Allure replaced under warranty . But I didn't get it replaced right away. Apparently AT&T had run out of replacement phones. That tell you anything? Then I went on Ebay, bought myself a Nokia 6160i for FIFTEEN DOLLARS and I have been happy ever since. Sold the replacement Allure on Ebay. Good riddance!
New is not necessarily better.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 129.00
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Epinions.com ID:
badacting
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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