And places are giving this away??
Written: Nov 03 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent sound, good list of features
Cons: roams earlier than other model phones
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| jjbrickley's Full Review: Qualcomm QPC-860 Cell Phone |
First of all, like at least one other reviewer here, I too came from a previous model phone, also Analog only. Previously my phone (Motorola Profile 300) was the "free" model. "Free" as in: sign up for a year and you can take the phone. This isn't an unreasonable marketing strategy, they had my business and I had that phone for more than 18 months. But all good things come to an end, or DO they?? The previous phone was obsolete enough that batteries for it were taken off shelves and put on "order" only. Accessories were all removed for newer better models, etc. This is the normal evolution of technology, after all, have you seen accessories for a Commodor 64 lately?
Well my choices were quickly shrinking, and worse, my battery was failing rapidly.... As fate would have it, the choice was made for me, somewhere, one weekend my phone got misplaced. Nearly a week later, several calls and lots of frustrated hours searching in vain, I gave up. My wife went down to the local Alltel center and upgraded both of ours services to digital and took the latest deal on "free" phones. Low and behold, enter the Qualcomm 860, not a penny, but "free" with contract. I had been happy with the general service of my provider, though under the new contract, I have no roaming fees: which is almost necessary where I work... in the middle of nowhere.
Like any good gadgeteer, I had to go through the options, they were easy to navigate with two menu buttons, plus numerical menu access and selection by arrow keys. I did have to pull out the book a couple of times to explain what some options actually did, having come from a model phone with almost no options, this was not unexpected. Selection and navigation of even these items, once the meanings were explained to me, were also easy. There is certainly nothing difficult about accessing this phone.
As mentioned by the others, this phone has a 99 number phone book, 9 can be single touch dialing (which I have disabled because of accidental presses). If enabled, one-touch dialing allows you to press and hold a number and the corresponding entry dialed (eg 9 key is book # 09). This is a fairly common feature, at least it was on my old phone as well. The book entries can be sorted by number or by description, descriptions are only 12 characters long, but that is long enough for an abbreviated name or description for most places. This is the second item I have used with the alpha characters chosen by pressing the button 1-3 times based on it's position on the alpha list below the number (eg C = 222 D=3, etc.), so it was quick and easy for me to enter items in the book.
I did not sign up for web browser service, so look in one of the other reviews here for that information.
Okay, the features are cool, we all have read that digital phones are great, so lets get down to the nitty-gritty.... Functionality. Above and beyond all the bells and whistles lies a cellular receiver and transmitter and digital conversion equipment, etc. Well, living in the cellular black hole that is New Mexico, I am used to dead spots, however those have diminished significantly. The Roaming area of this phone came in by almost 1 mile. Looking through the features, I think I know the cause of this. The Qualcomm 860 features a faster cross-over to prevent drop-outs on near roaming calls, I assume that the phone starts using the roam slightly earlier to try to prevent drop-outs as the current services heads for the dead-zone. That is pure conjecture, but it makes sense. If you don't have a service that won't charge roaming fees, you may want to look in the manual for how to turn the phone to "local only" mode while in your local calling area. This option will allow you to make a call even at the noisy end of your calling area without roaming, however, watch out for drop-outs with this mode.....
If you are within the digital calling area, the sound quality is much higher, as to be expected with digital services. The phone book also stores any calls you missed temporarily with their caller-id number (if sent) and it makes calling back missed calls exceptionally easy. Voice-mail and pages are easy to access with the "envelope" button that doubles as email on web-based systems.
Additional features: multiple rings, volume control on ring and button, mute, keyboard lock, security code, one-key dial, voice-mail, pager, and many others. But not forget the banner option, lets you put your own banner name at the top of your phone. It came configured as "Alltel" by my service provider, thankfully I changed that rapidly.... If you find a Qualcomm 860 with "SAMURAI" at the top; it's mine, please take good care of it and return it.... ;-)
This phone rates a 4.5 in my book, but I will have to round down for this review.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jjbrickley
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Location: New Mexico
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 5 members
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