An impressive phone - and some secrets!
Written: Sep 12 '02 (Updated Sep 27 '02)
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Pros: Super-light and thin, cool ringers, big screen, great signal quality
Cons: Poorly placed buttons, bad phone book, long, expensive accessories
The Bottom Line: If you're not looking for a 3G data phone, this is probably the best Sprint phone you can get.
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| bowtah's Full Review: Sanyo SCP 6200 Cell Phone |
My last phone was a Touchpoint 2200 made by Denso, who later exited the mobile phone market. It had problems with weak signals. My wife's 2100 worked much better in those situations. When I recently moved, I discovered that my new house was in a Sprint PCS "dead zone" and I couldn't get a signal at all inside my house or even in front of the house. I could walk 20 feet down the street and get a perfect signal though. So my phone became pretty much useless at home. I had changed my plan in February, so I had several months left on my contract and had to stick with Sprint. So I did some research, focusing on phones that seemed work better than others with weak signals.
The word from both my local Sprint PCS Store and the Sprint newsgroup was that Sanyo phones were best at getting weak signals, so I focused on them. I was very interested in the new Treo, but $500 is a lot to pay for a phone and it would require me to switch to a more expensive plan and sign on for another year, which is exactly what I didn't want if I still couldn't get a signal at my house. I went to the Sprint store and explained my situation. The guy there said it might just be the phone's list of cell networks that it uses, took it back and upgraded the list. So I drove home and tried it. It still sucked. I drove back and got this phone.
I've been using it for about a month now and I like most things about it. But there are some weak spots, especially when I compare it to my Touchpoint.
Signal
I'm happy to report I can make flawless calls in almost every room in my house. This was my #1 feature and the one I'm the most happy about. The extendable antenna seems to help, but it's also a pain when you try to grab the phone out of your pocket, only to grab the antenna and pull it out rather than pull out the whole phone. Unlike the 6000, this phone has analog roaming as well. It also has 3G voice (not data), so theoretically it should be able to use that for even clearer calls.
Weight
This is the most noticeable feature of this phone. At 2.3 oz, at first I could barely feel that I even had the phone. This was actually a problem because I kept thinking I had lost it! But that novelty has worn off now and somehow it seems heavier than it was when I first got it. If you take out the battery though it weighs almost nothing and it's hard to believe that this slab of plastic does anything!
Design
This phone is definitely an attention getter. People will want to grab it from you and play with it, amazed at how thin and light it is. It's basically an obelisk, but with the antenna protruding out from the back at a weird angle. I don't understand why the antenna couldn't just come straight out the top, but it's not much of a problem. Maybe they're trying not to fry your brain. The phone does get warm after a few minutes of use. Jamming all those electronics into such a thin case has costs! It doesn't bother me though. If I'm on the phone for a while, I'll usually plug in a headset. But I'm looking forward to using my phone as a ear warmer in the winter!
The worst design decision on this phone was to put the menu and clear buttons at the bottom of the phone. Most functions use the directional pad and softkeys, but some things require you to use the menu and clear buttons and it's a long reach to get them. It's very awkward to go back in menus. This is partially because this phone is longer than most phones.
Durability
It seems to hold up well, though I dropped it once and got several scratches and cuts on the plastic on the sides. Nothing that would affect function, but enough to bum me out.
Accessories
It comes with only a travel charger. The desktop charger is a steep $80. I like to keep my phone on vibrate when it's in my pocket, but obviously that doesn't work when it's on a table charging. My Touchpoint was smart about this - when it was in the charger it would override the vibrate and turn on the ringer. This phone forces me to switch the ringer setting all the time (luckily you can do this just by hitting the up and down buttons), which I mostly forget to do.
Display
It's large! The backlight color can be switched from green to orange, though the backlighting on the buttons remains green. The green backlight is brighter. The backlight flickers and dims slightly when the phone is a lot of power, like when using the web or dialing. You can change the font size on messages, and get even more lines. There are screensavers (downloadable) and animations while it searches for a signal or connects. The included ones aren't very exciting and I turned these features off.
Phonebook
The weakest feature by far on this phone is the phonebook. First and last names do not have separate fields, so unless you awkwardly type in your names in "Last, First" format you can't sort by last name. Of course, this would cause havoc if you tried to sync these entries with your PC. Making the problem worse is the lack of folders in the address book. That's right, all your names are in one big list, first names first. What a mess. Editing the address book is also cumbersome. There's no way to add an entry using the right pad shortcut. The address book seems to be optimized for editing, not dialing. I don't know about you, but I dial a lot more often than I edit numbers. For example, it always lists lines for each of the different numbers per entry (home, office, mobile, etc.), so you often have to scroll through several lines to get to the number you want. You can't set a default number for each entry. Then, if you want to actually dial the number, you have to reach over to the talk button, instead of hitting the more intuitive OK button. The OK button makes you edit the number. If you accidentally hit OK, then you have hit OK again, then the right softkey to save your non-changes, which takes a few seconds because it insists on playing a sound and showing an alert that your changes were saved. What were you trying to do again?
Ringers
Lots of crazy ringers. The meowing cat ringer is so good that cats will freak out near you when you play it. It must be some kind of cat distress call because real cats run around frantically looking for another cat. You can download more with the Ringers & More service (extra $$$) or use the sync cable and Sanyo Multimedia software to transfer midi files to your phone. Haven't tried this myself.
Other notable features
No speakerphone. Never worked well on my Touchpoint, so I guess it's OK. Voice dial, voice memo (only 18s per memo). Wireless web works well. Only one game, crab catcher, which is OK. Strange that there's only one compared to most phones today.
Secrets
There are some secret menus you can get to on this phone. These may screw up your phone, so be careful and don't change anything you can't change back. To get to these menus, go to the main screen that displays the time. Enter ## and then the number, then hit the menu button and select save phone#. That should get you in.
For the service menu to change your phone number, the number is 261554. For the debug menu, the number is 040793. This menu appears to indicate that this phone CAN do 3G data. Airtime menu: 8463. (After your phone resets, check the call history menu for a new airtime entry that shows your total number and time of calls!) Browser IP Setup: 2769737. Vocoder: 8626337.
If you enter a wrong number, your phone will immediately shut off, but you can turn it right on again, no harm done. But again, be careful.
Conclusion
Overall, a great phone if you're not looking for 3G data. The guys at the Sprint store said that no one had ever returned this phone because they didn't like it. I believe them.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
bowtah
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Member: Jeff Boulter
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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