Kyocera 2135 - Is This The Best Verizon Wireless Can Offer?
Written: Dec 05 '02 (Updated Jan 15 '04)
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Pros: Could be a nice for those new to cellular phones, good selection of features.
Cons: Not very sturdy, looks a little on the cheap side, expensive accessories.
The Bottom Line: If you’'e looking for a dependable cellular phone but don't anticipate using it very often, this would be a good pick. Not for those who live on the cell phone!
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| Freak369's Full Review: Kyocera 2135 Cell Phone |
I purchased a Kyocera 2135 as part of a Verizon Wireless Pre-Paid Cellular offer. I was given a pre-paid card, the phone and a charger for $99.00 plus a very sizable rebate from the manufacturer. I wasn’t too excited about the phone since it looked – to me – a little goofy. At the time this was the only phone that Verizon Wireless offered with their pre-paid plan so I was sort of stuck with it. Wouldn’t you know it – a month after I purchased it they upgraded and added another phone that you could purchase – a much nicer looking phone. I’ve been through three of these so far and while I will openly admit to being hard on electronics – I wasn’t tossing them down step, at walls or jumping on them. If you are looking for a phone that will give you the ability to communicate with others when on the road then this is a good pick however if you plan on doing a lot of talking on your phone – do yourself a favor and look around for something a little more sturdy.
Getting started with the phone is fairly easy but I do suggest that you read through the instruction manual that is provided. If you are like me and instructions aren’t something that interests you – sitting down and playing with the different options is probably the best way to get the feel of this phone. The size is 5 inches [length] x 2 inches [width] x 1 inch [depth] so you won’t be dealing with one of those small mini / micro-phones that get lost when you toss it in your bag. My phone has a removable blue faceplate with silver accents. You can pick up a different colored faceplate [orange, clear, solid black, yellow etc] with prices ranging from $14.99 - $19.99. The antenna extended a little over four inches and collapses into the top portion of the phone. The antenna is pretty sturdy but will get easily bent if you aren’t careful – make sure you press it all the way back into the base [you will hear a faint click when you do so] before putting it in your purse or backpack or you might just need to purchase a replacement.
Features
Caller ID
The Caller ID service that you get with this phone only allows you to see the telephone number of the caller – not the name. While this isn’t a huge issue there have been times when I’ve had to stand there and say I know that number … but who does it belong to? If you program in names with telephone numbers in your address book / contact list it will show that name with the incoming call. This is nice but if someone is calling from a payphone or other number you will still have to sit there any play the guessing game. So far I haven’t had any trouble with the Caller ID feature however there is no way to block a number so if you have a stalker you’ll have to deal with it yourself.
Voice Mail
This phone comes with voice mail but I have never set it up [bad me]. Having the pre-paid plan I didn’t want to have to deal with wasting minutes calling in to see who left me a message. I can just as easily scroll through the “recent call” list and see who called. Any call that you do not answer is denoted with a small phone icon and “X” that is blinking. From what I have heard the voice mail is easy to use and set up – but for me it just isn’t something that I want to get involved with at this stage in the game.
Screen
The backlight feature [lime green] helps if you want to have your phone completely silent, if you can’t seem to find it in your knapsack at night or if you need a little help getting your key in the door. The brilliance of the backlight isn’t extremely powerful but it will allow you to make calls at night or when a bit of light is needed otherwise. There are five lines of information on the phone: icons, display banner [programmable] time, incoming calls and menu. The contrast of the phone can be changed to suit your needs and preferences [from within the Tools section]. The screen information is easy to read and in most cases you won’t need to sit there and move the phone around to read the lettering. I haven’t experienced any glare from the screen – something that my older phone was completely guilty of.
15 Ring Tones
Before you even ask – no – this phone does not allow you to download ring tones from the internet. That is something that I asked about several times before I purchased the phone and no one could give me a straight answer. The tones are average but somewhat generic. You can program the phone to ring certain tones for business calls or personal calls but I never bothered to sit down and do this since I’m not a “cell phone” person.
Alert Modes
This part of the features section is a little tricky to master but after sitting down and playing around with it for about fifteen minutes I finally figured it out. You can have the phone in normal mode where it will right and light up you get an incoming call additionally you can have it silenced where it will vibrate and light up. Play around with the settings and you can have it completely silent so the screen just blinks. It would take me about an hour to sit here and explain how to do this but if you want to know how, please feel free to email me. Additionally you can adjust the volume of the ringer from a pleasant little ring to something that will scare you out of your skin.
Keyguard
This is something that I highly suggest that you enable if you plan on carrying your phone in your purse or backpack. This locks the phone so that if something accidentally presses against the keypad, no number is dialed. To unlock the phone simply press 1-2-3 and you are free to use it. You can have this set to automatically go into keyguard mode when a call is completed or on a timed basis [30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes]. This can save you from wasting minutes and should be considered a complete necessity if you have a prepaid plan.
Tools
The Tools section of the phone allows you to use the calculator, find out how much to leave for a tip, set a countdown timer in case you need to be out the door in a certain period of time, stopwatch and one game – Brick Attack which is similar to Pong. The Tools section is packed with little goodies so make sure you explore this part of your phone. The calculator isn’t the easiest to use but it sure is nice when you need to do some quick math. The tip calculator allows you to enter the total amount of the bill and then choose what percentage you wish to leave as a tip [10, 15, 18, 20 or other]. It also gives you the option to split the bill, choose the number of guests and the final amount to be paid by each party.
Text Messaging
This phone allows you to send and receive text messages that are typed out on the keypad. I have only sent a few messages and only received one so I am not an expert in the area. For those of you that are going pre-paid the fee for using the text service is .05 cents to send and receive. Messages can be stored for an unlimited amount of time in your file box located under the ‘messages’ section of the phone. To the best of my knowledge you have to be on the same network as the sender or receiver for this option to work – but the newer phones from Verizon may be different.
Allotment Timer
[this is added for those who are purchasing the pre-paid service]
When you go to place a call you will hear a message telling you how much airtime you have left in your account. Occasionally you will hear messages about promotional offers [purchase a $50.00 card - get 200 free weekend minutes]. When your time is running low [less than ten minutes] you will hear a message that plays for about 60 seconds telling you that you need to recharge soon, where to purchase them etc. You can skip over this message by pressing the star [*] button.
Battery Charging
With this phone you also receive a charging unit. This plugs into the bottom of the phone and usually takes about 90 minutes to give it a complete charge if the phone is dead. If you have completely drained the life out of the battery the screen will go blank and you will have to wait about ten to fifteen minutes to use the phone. You can use the phone while it is the charge mode however you may lose a call if you stay on too long. When your phone is charged to its capacity you can expect to get about 200 – 220 minutes of use out of it however this depends on how old your phone is and how much use the battery has seen. After about six months you can expect that 200 – 220 minutes to drop to about 180 – 200 minutes. To get the best charge you should occasionally allow your battery to completely deplete itself and allow it to charge to capacity. You will get a small beep when the battery is getting low as well as a message on the screen. The battery pack doesn’t get overheated either. Some phones and chargers would scare me to death since the power pack that plugs into the wall would feel like it was ready to burst into flames while charging.
Phone 1
The first phone that I got lasted about three weeks before the address book / contact list started acting up. I would enter numbers, names, information and it would store it but when I would go to access the numbers – the address book / contact list would be empty. This also happened with the Pong type game that comes with the phone. The game would start and the ball would hover mid screen and do absolutely nothing. I returned it and after 20 minutes of waiting in line I was told that there were no replacements available and to come back in three days. When I went back the next week I was told that since I purchased the phone with a pre-paid plan I had no warranty. Yeah, sure, get me the manager. After a heated debate, in which I mentioned calling one of the main offices, I was handed a new phone. All the information [display screen, phone data etc] was transferred and I was on my merry way.
Phone 2
Not being content with having a cellular phone, I stopped by the Verizon Wireless store to pick up a headset. I detest talking on the phone to start with – let alone a cellular phone. You’ll never catch me chatting away while doing 80 on the freeway either. The headset cost $45.00 and I was told that this was the only headset that would work with the phone. Looking back I now realize that this is a complete crock of bull. The headset worked great – that is until the small receptacle into which the headset jack gets plugged into sunk into the side of the phone. There was no way to plug the headset into the phone so the newly purchased headset was basically a complete waste. After stopping by the same store that I purchased the phone from I was livid. Not only did I have to wait in line for about twenty minutes but I was given the same old song and dance about the pre-paid plan and that I had no right to ask for a replacement phone. Get the manager. After another fifteen minutes I was presented with another phone – instead of just giving me the newer phone that they offer for the pre-paid plan [must be a tri-band phone] they handed me another Kyocera 2135. Realizing that I wasn’t about to argue for another hour to get a newer version I gathered up all the junk from the new phone and left.
Phone 3
This one has survived but I can’t use the headset with it since the plug broke the same exact way as phone # 2. I started thinking that maybe it was the headset – maybe it was the wrong size or type for this particular phone. I took it back and talked to one of the guys that works at the Verizon kiosk at the mall and he told me – to my face – that “those phone are complete junk”. He looked at the headset and told me that it was indeed the correct item to use with this phone. I am at my wits end with this thing and thank god I only use it once or twice a week. The next phone I purchase or lease will be one that has a better track record than this one.
Is It Just Me?
I asked around and there seems to be a split decision amongst uses and owners of this phone – some seem to really love it and others loathe it. I think I am in the middle since I don’t really use it all that often these days. This is for the casual cellular phone user – someone that wants it for emergencies or for short two minute conversations. If you are a heavy talker this phone just isn’t a viable option. When I had over a thousand weekend minutes I used them to call people who were out of state since the rate was the same – after about fifteen minutes your face gets all sweaty [this wouldn’t have happened had the headset jack worked properly] and it starts to slide all over the place. This would be a great phone for teenagers since the maximum you can talk on it is about twenty minutes before you start to really get frustrated with it.
The Bottom Line
Overall I am not all that impressed with this phone. All the sales people said that this was their most requested phone – I now understand that “most requested” must include all the people that lined up to return it for a replacement phone. Since I am a very light user of the phone I can’t imagine what torture the heavy users went through. Maybe I just got a few bum phones – possible the entire run of phones had defects. Who knows? The customer service people sure don’t. The bottom line is this – talk to people who own cellular phones before you make a purchase. This is the best way to get a feel of what the phone can do, the options and if it is right for you. I hate to say that sales people are the last people that you should talk to – but you really have to question if they are trying to sell you the best phone for your needs or just the one that will net them the most commission or help to meet the established sales quota of the office.
As always, thanks for the visit!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2002 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): See Review
Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable
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