Big features, packed in 4.5 oz's
Written: May 14 '00 (Updated May 20 '00)
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Pros: Ton's of feature's, similar to Nokia, easy to learn and navigate
Cons: antenna needs to be more sturdy, doesn't help reception.
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| Kissikins's Full Review: Audiovox CDM4000 |
When I find a product I like, I tend to tell everyone I know about it. Epinions of course being my favorite way to do it.
In October of 1999 I decided to make the plunge from a analog phone to a digital. Currently I am a airtouch customer so my choices of phone's did not include the nokia, that I have always been so fond of. That's when I started looking for something comparable that airtouch offered, and stumbled across a little gem called the Audiovox 4000.
Appearance wise it resembles the nokia phones, shares alot of the same features but with one difference, the price .
Here is a run down of the good and the bad with this phone...
General Info
Dual Mode, 800 MHz Amps/CDMA Operation-
The dual mode is a nice feature, what this means is the phone is capable of switching between analog and digital on it's own when you go from an area that was using digital and suddenly driving in a area only offering analog. When you switch into analog mode you lose some of the cool extra's such as use of caller ID and with this particular phone, the sound quality isn't near as good in analog mode and often times will have a echo, almost like you are talking inside a drum.
15 Ringer Options
This phone has a nice selection of different ringer tones for you to choose from. Why would you want that you ask?
Say for instance you are in a restaurant, a busy one at that, if you set your phone to a distinct ring tone, you will easily be able to tell when it is your phone ringing and not someone else's. Another nice thing about this phone is you can program it easily to ring with one tone for most call's and have it set to ring a totally different tone for special numbers. I have mine set to ring with a general sound with most call's, but when one comes from my children's school, I will hear a different ring tone. This comes in handy because at times I may be busy and not answer my phone, but if I hear this particular ringing sound, I know it is important and will answer the call.
Talk time & Standby Time-
with standard 950 mAh Li-Ion Battery: Up to 190 min. in digital mode and up to 65 min. in analog mode.
Standby time with standard 950 mAh Li-Ion battery: Up to 170 hrs. in digital mode and up to 12 hrs. in analog mode. I have went out of state and not turned my phone off the entire night, and still had plenty of battery time left through the whole next day.
Weight-
4.5 oz/128g
Enhanced Phonebook
This phone is capable of 99 alpha stored numbers and 198 numeric. What does that mean? Well, you can store up to 99 names in your phone book, but the great part is, each name can have up to two different numbers stored for it. Let's say you have your brother's home phone number stored in the phone book, but he has a cell phone also. You can store both of his numbers together using only 1 of your 99 available storing slots.
Basically, what I am getting at is, you can store 99 names in your address book, but 198 phone numbers. Storing numbers is extremely easy, just enter the phone number, press the "store" key, enter names using the letter's on your keypad and then press store again. It's that simple. They are easily recalled by a search feature in your phonebook.
Full Dot Matrix LCD Display-
The screen is simple to read, the numbers large enough for even people with slightly less than perfect eyesight. Anytime you dial a number or get a call, the screen and the keypad to this phone light up making it yet even easier to see.
Caller ID-
The Audiovox comes with caller ID, however unless you are signed up for this feature with your cell phone provider, it will not work. One of the thing's I like is that when a call comes in, if it is someone you already have stored in your phonebook, it will show the name the same as you have it listed in your phonebook. So, when I get a call from home, since I have my home number listed in my address book using the name "home", when the call comes in , it read's on my phone the same way.."Home" and also shows the number too.
Text Messaging-
Another feature that is included with this phone but also requires set up from your service provider. Basically what this does is allow you to get text messages from someone using a computer, it then comes across your screen on your phone, almost like a mini email, or text pager if you have ever used one of those.
Voice Mail-
With the touch of one key you can access your voicemail. Voicemail however is something you must be signed up for with your current cell phone provider.
One touch Answer-
When you get a call on your cell phone, you can push any button and it will answer the phone. This comes in handy when you are driving, you aren't distracted by looking at your phone for the key that answer's the phone, push any key and you can talk. The downside is, you must use the hang up key to end a call.
Durability-
I have honestly dropped this phone, I know a good 3 times on pavement, and not so much as put a scratch on it in the process! It still is functioning properly and looks like it did the day it came out of the box.
Timer's-
The audiovox comes with three timer's which you can easily view at any time with a few pushes of a button. The first timer will say last call, and display's how long you talked on the last call. Another nice thing about this phone is, while you are on a call , the time display's as your talking of how long you have been on the call.
The second timer is for outgoing call's, it will display how many minute's and second's you have used placing call's from your phone.
The third is all call's and keep's a accurate record of how many minute's in total you have used..I use this feature alot so I make sure I don't go over my alloted minutes per month.
Not so impressive-
I have noticed that the antenna on this phone is basically useless. It is not very sturdy and even when I have extended it to full length, I have never gotten a better reception. Leaving it down is what I do because I won't risk breaking it and as I said..it's useless as far as my experience with it.
The audiovox 4000 doesn't have a vibrating battery that you can purchase. I personally prefer the vibrating batteries because in my line of work, I am not allowed to have my phone on because the ringing sound is considered distracting. If this phone came with a vibrating battery then I could leave my phone on and be able to be reached at any time. Their newer model phone's however do come with this feature. I would like to add though..the phone comes with (and I just discovered this recently) a silent alert mode. What this means is, you can set the phone on silent and it will light up when a calls comes in, if your phone is in viewing range of you then you could be alerted someone is trying to reach you, with the caller ID you would know who, and then be able to call them when you are on a break or able to use your phone. This is the method I've been using at work, since having the ringer on is not allowed at my desk.
Summary :
This phone has been more than satisfactory, the design is attractive and slim, it is very light weight and comes packed with more features than what I have described in this review. The clarity of the call's are very good, the phone is simple to use and pretty self explanitory. You also have the option to buy a hands free car kit for this phone ..so you can talk on your phone without having to hold it to your ear while you are driving. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a good quality phone for a great price! If you like the Nokia brand phone's, you will find this one very similar but less expensive. Audiovox get's a two thumbs up from this user!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75.00
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Epinions.com ID:
Kissikins
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Reviews written: 94
Trusted by: 68 members
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