Don't waste the cash on Webphone at this point
Written: Jan 29 '01 (Updated Jan 29 '01)
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Pros: Small size
Many features
Cons: Web feature not usable at this point
keypad not protected = calls from pocket
The Bottom Line: Good digital phone, but choose something cheaper that doesn't include the web access.
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| pbanas's Full Review: Sprint TouchPoint 2200 Cell Phone |
Like everyone in Northern California, I was caught up in the wireless web frenzy of late 2000. And, after a trip to Tokyo seeing hundreds of teenagers working the little buttons on their phones to send instant messages to their friends, I figured I could get a web-enabled phone that would replace my Palm Pilot and Blackberry pager. Unless you have the patience of Job, you will not use this phone to surf the Web more than once per week. And here's why:
1. Typing on a numeric keyboard is mind-numbingly slow even if you want to type "thanks" or "hi" or "I Love You." Try it on your phone at home a few times just to see how much you could endure. Add in the complexity of spaces and punctuation, and this is not a messaging device.
2. Whether it's phone.com (the service that provides the web access to Sprint I think), the Sprint line, or interface with the featured web sites, access is slow and sometimes you can wait 2 minutes before moving on to the next screen. You can only receive about 5 sentences at once into your phone, so a message of any length has to be downloaded numerous times for you to read it. You clearly have to be sitting with absolutely nothing else to do before you would read your email this way, because...
3. You are paying for web usage by the minute after the free minutes you probably got with your phone. The "free" web minutes are only good for the first 6 months so after that, it's anyone's guess as to how wildly expensive this pastime would become.
So, I recommend against this or any other web phone for the moment unless you absolutely have to stay connected to the web and have space in pocket or purse for only one device. The Blackberry does a far better job of always on messaging.
And for shopping on Amazon, forget it!
That said, it's a cute little phone and it's easy to capture phone numbers into it. It's probably just better to wait for better technology to come along in this case.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 249
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Epinions.com ID:
pbanas
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Member: Paul Banas
Location: San Francisco
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
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