Kyocera QCP 2035a: Compact, Portable, and Quiet
Written: Dec 30 '01
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Pros: Compact Size; Lots of Features; Vibrate mode
Cons: Battery Charge Indicator declines unevenly; Price is higher than other cell phones
The Bottom Line: This phone is small and easily portable, and it has dozens of convenience features.
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: Kyocera QCP 2035a Cell Phone |
When I found out recently that I was going to start teaching college, I decided that it would be a good idea to make sure that my students had an easy time reaching me with questions and concerns about study material, homework, tests, etc. I already have a personal e-mail address, along with a university e-mail address, so I felt that my students would have no problem getting in touch with me.
Still, I realize that there are some people who don’t have a computer or who have limited access to the internet. For this reason, I decided that it was time that I gave in and purchase a cell phone. I had put off buying a cell phone for several years, mainly because I felt that I didn’t really need one badly enough to justify the $35 monthly service fee. But with my class, I now had a good, solid reason to justify the purchase.
I have owned stock in Vodaphone Corporation (the parent of Verizon) for a long time, so it made the most sense to go to Verizon to sign up for service, and to select a cell phone. After looking around for a short time, I decided that the Kyocera QCP 2035a was the phone for me.
Features of This Cell Phone:
There were many other phones to choose from, but I liked the features on this phone the best. Let’s take a look at a rundown of some of this cell phone’s specific features:
Small Size: This phone is very compact in size, measuring only 5 inches in length, 1.75 inches in width, and .75 inches in thickness (13, 4.5 and 2 centimeters, respectively). It doesn’t fold in half, like some other cell phones. It’s all in one piece, and it’s small enough to easily fit in your pocket.
Battery Life: Kyocera powers this phone with a lithium battery, which must be recharged periodically. There’s a battery symbol, on the crystal display panel, that indicates the charge level of the battery. Within the battery symbol, there are 4 dark bars. If all four bars are lit, then the battery is fully charged; if three are lit, it’s lost a portion of the charge, and so forth. When fully charged, you can talk on this phone for about 3 hours. If you don’t use the phone at all, the battery will still lose all of its power, in about 3 to 4 days.
Contacts: If you have some phone numbers that you frequently call, you can store them in contact area, for easy access. This phone will store up to 200 different phone numbers, and it displays them in alphabetical order. If you have a large number of contacts in storage, you can scroll down the entire list, or select “find name” from the menu, and enter all or part of the person’s name. A list showing all the matching names will display.
Settings: There are lots of different setting options on this phone, and I find that I am still discovering new ones each day. You can select among 15 different ring options, or vibrate- only, if you don’t want to hear any ringing. You can also control the ringer volume, key beep volume, and the ear piece volume. If you don’t want any sounds at all, you can select “silence all”, and you will never hear anything from the phone (except, of course, the person you are talking to), even when you press the keys to dial out.
If you happen to miss a call, it will tell you so on the phone’s display panel. You can then select the option to view recent calls, from the menu, and it will show you the phone number of the individual who was trying to reach you, along with the time of day that the call came through.
Security is a concern to many people, so the makers of this phone have installed a few options to protect your privacy. This phone allows you to place a lock on the phone, so that it cannot be used without entering a special code. There’s also an option to limit outgoing calls to only include those from the contact list, and an option to immediately erase all contacts and/or recent calls.
Tools: Kyocera equips this phone with several tools that can come in handy from time to time. There’s a calculator, an alarm clock, a countdown timer, a stopwatch, and a game to play, called “brick attack”. Don’t expect to find trigonometric or financial functions on the calculator. It’s just a simple calculator, offering the four basic mathematical functions (add, subtract, multiply, and divide), along with a negative/positive key and a few memory keys.
Sending/Receiving Messages: If you have a voicemail message, it will first be indicated on the front panel of the phone, where it will say “voicemail messages”, preceded by the number that are in storage. Once you press clear, the message will go away, but an envelope symbol will remain on the panel, until you retrieve your messages. Once a message has been retrieved, you can reply, erase, save, or add the person to your contact file.
When you send a message, you have an option to leave an automatic callback phone number, which will then attach itself to all of your outgoing messages. There are other options, too, like a delivery receipt. This feature will send an alert to your phone, when your recipient listens to your message. You can also flag a message to be delivered on a specific date, in the future.
Web Browser: This feature will only be applicable if you have purchased internet service from your wireless service provider. If you have this service, then you can use the phone to access internet sites.
Final Thoughts:
I have been using this phone for about 2 months now, and it has suited my needs just fine. It probably has more features than I really need, with a cell phone, but its nice to know that these features are there, in case I ever need them.
The front panel of the phone always shows the current date and time, along with special icons that indicate the battery charge level, voicemail alerts, etc. These settings can be changed, but I like having the date and time on constant display. If I forget my watch, I can just pull out my phone and see the date and time.
I did have one annoying problem with this phone, when I first made the purchase. On the panel of the phone, it would constantly say “searching”, which meant that it was having trouble finding a phone signal. This happened no matter where I was calling from, including from my own house. And when the phone was in this mode, I was unable to use it, for either outgoing calls or incoming calls. I took the phone back, explained the problem to the technicians, and they replaced it right away, with no questions asked. I have had no problems since.
One thing that I don’t like about this phone is the battery life. Specifically, I don’t like the way the battery charge display declines at an exponential rate. Like I stated above, a fully- charged battery is good for about 3 hours of talk time. There are four bars on the battery icon display, that indicate the charge level, but they do not represent an even amount of talk time remaining. The first bar will take about 60 minutes to disappear. The second will take about 45 minutes. The other bars fall even more quickly. So, if you plan on talking for a while, you need to make sure that you have plenty of charge left. I have used the phone when there were 2 bars left, thinking that I had plenty of time to talk. But my phone quickly fell to one bar, and then gave me a warning beep that my battery was about to die out, all in less than 45 minutes. The overall battery life is better with this phone than with others, which is good, but I would like it better if the bars were evenly distributed, with each one representing about 45 minutes of talk time.
This phone normally sells for about $70 new. I was able to get mine, as part of my sign- up deal with Verizon, for only $20. I could have chosen another less expensive phone for free, but I wanted more features than those free phones offered. One thing that I really needed was the vibrate feature, which is something that the free phones did not have.
So far, I’m satisfied with my Kyocera QCP 2035a cell phone. I haven’t received very many calls yet, since only a few people have my cell phone number. But I expect that number to increase shortly, when I start teaching college on January 2, 2002. When that time comes, I will probably become an expert on all the messaging features, contact features, callback options, etc. While I’m teaching my students about money, they will be teaching me, in an indirect way, about all the advantages of owning this phone.
My purchase of this cell phone was primarily for practical reasons, but now that I have it, I don’t think I could survive without the convenience of wireless service. The Kyocera QCP 2035a will be a permanent occupant of my front pocket for a long time!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 70
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