I've only had this phone for 3 days now, and I already have to write about it. Certain to return in a few months with updated info about real life battery usage and clarity over different networks, this review will showcase this phone's many useful, and not so useful features.

First, I'll quickly explain what I needed in a phone. I'm not a constant talker and I don't need a phone because it's cool to have a cell phone ring at the bar letting everyone know I'm hip on technology. I needed a phone for two main reasons: 1) to keep me in touch with my fiance. I have an hour car commute and often work late, and she takes the train into NYC often with train delays. And 2) for a simple to-do list.

I know, I should buy a palm right? Not yet, the technology is too immature and everything I wanted in a handheld lead me towards buying a laptop.
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EXPLANATION OF REASON #1:
I'm mostly finding myself needing to make calls in my car which I am TOTALLY against. So I wanted to find the best compromise between safety and convenience. Here's what the Sanyo SCP-4500 has to offer.

A) SPEAKERPHONE- loud and clear, both speaking into and listen to the speaker. This option is accessible anytime, with a button directly under the screen.

B) AUTO ANSWER - this will allows you to set a number of rings (1,3,off) before the phone automatically answers the incoming call. If you're trying to hide from your boss during those "sick" days, this might not be the best thing.
But now you don't even have to touch the phone to answer it.

C) VOICE DIAL - I know "voice command" is offered on most of SprintPCS phones, but this one does it without adding any options to your service plan. It will allow you to dial up to 30 records in your phone book simply by recording your command once and then saying it anytime.

D) PHONE BOOK - it allows multiple numbers per entry (work, home, fax, mobile), plus an email address which you can use to send email from the phone and a web address which you can browse, from the phone if you have wireless web. However, my problem with this feature is that the entry for the name only allows 16 characters and there's no area for mailing address (not that big a deal).
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EXPLANATION OF REASON #2:
Recently I've been looking into buying a handheld and found nothing that was everything I wanted and nothing I didn't. What do I need an MP3 player for in my $600 handheld if it can only store 5 songs? Get me? So I ended up realizing all I needed was something to organize my tasks for the day, remind me if I missed something, and to set up recurring tasks. Here's how this "phone" doubles as a "PIM".

A) CALENDAR - you can view the current week dates with an asterick next to any dates with "events" associated with them.

B) EVENTS - click on a date to add a scheduled event or call alarm (see below) with a date, start time, end time, alert, and recurrence associated with it.

C) CALL ALARM - schedule a call you need to make, with a phone number, and an alert associated with it.

D) TO-DO LIST - clicking on any date in the calendar you can view your to-do list. There, you can add an item or convert it to a scheduled event. It's good for short "memory joggers", that will remind you of what you have to do, not a LONG task description. And my one big problem with the to-do list is that it's down 3 button clicks (see Menu Organization below).

E) T9 DATA INPUT - this is an intuitive typing scheme Sanyo employs that I was VERY scheptical about at first, but quickly found to be a much better, although not perfect, way of inputing regular words and "sentences"
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OTHER PROS AND CONS:

A) MENU ORGANIZATION - I think Sanyo people could have done better with the organization of menu items, that would be more effecient. For example, to get to the TO-DO LIST you need to go to CALENDAR/DATE/TO-DO LIST. That's three clicks. While on the top level menu items, theres: DISPLAY, SOUNDS, and SETUP, which ALL could have been grouped under ENVIRONMENT item. However, once you are in a section the choices do make sense about what you can do next.

B) ONLY TWO GAMES - This is a definate PRO! I do not want to pay almost $200 so I can waste away my batteries playing stupid mind numbing games. That's what game consoles were made for. But if you do like to play games, there's a "Crab Catch" where you have to catch falling "things" and a "Slot Machine" (yes, exactly like it sounds).

C) CALCULATOR - a convenient calculator allowing you to do simple computations on. Don't think you'll be doing trig problems on this one. But hey, it's usefull.

D) RINGS - there's about 15 different rings available on the phone. 5 tones and another 8-10 "songs". Usually useles and only prove to be annoying in the theatre, but through the SETUP and ALERTS, you can specify different rings for differnt things. If the call coming in is in your contacts, or if it's a restricted number, etc... many options (tone, song, song tempo, volume, key volume, key tone). Oh, forgot to mention my personal favorite and a MUST for my purchase, VIBRATING ringer.

E) VOICE RING - this goes along with rings, but I had to separate it. Using caller ID and your phone book, you can have your phone speak the name of the caller for a ring of an incoming call. pretty simple.. but really cool

F) PRESET ENVIRONMENTS - you can set and save pretty much all the options that go along with ringer and display as a named preset.

G) ROAMING ALARM - notifies you that you are out of your regular service area

H) WIRELESS WEB - pretty cool, forget reading anything longer than short info. Good for movie times, other web mail (Yahoo and Hotmail), purchases (although I don't know if it's secure), and some other cool stuff.

And I think that's about it..........

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 179.99