Review of Sprint PCS and the Sanyo SCP-2700 Smartphone
Posted on | November 24, 2009 | No Comments
Sanyo SCP-2700 for Sprint
Sprint Service Review
My wife and I recently changed carriers from AT&T to Sprint to take advantage of Sprint’s online promotion. We ordered 2 new Sanyo SCP-2700 smartphones (pictured). My wife ordered the pink model and I ordered the deep blue. The phones came in 2 business days later as promised, but we received 2 blue ones instead of 1 pink and 1 blue. After figuring out what number to call, which can be a little bit of a Lexis-Nexis search on the Sprint site, Sprint customer service acknowledged the mistake and shipped the correct one right away. My wife received her phone in 2 days. So far, Sprint followed through on their promises and corrected their mistake.
Sprint plan overview: our new plan includes 1500 anytime minutes, unlimited after 7pm on nights and weekends, unlimited text messaging, unlimited minutes on phones in the Sprint network, and nationwide coverage/roaming. Compared to our former AT&T plan we end up with free text messaging and more minutes.
Sanyo SCP-2700 Smartphone Review
This smartphone reminds me of the old Blackberry 6230 I used to have, with the full keyboard and comparable screen size, the main difference being a full color display vs. monochrome and the track wheel on the side.
Likes:
- threaded text messaging: my wife and I set up Twitter right away through the free messaging feature in Twitter. It was a welcome site to see the thread of messages during the set up process.
- manageable keyboard size: the feel of the keyboard was pretty natural for me. Caveat: I do not have huge fingers, so for anyone with “fat” or wide fingers, I can see having a harder time.
- user-friendly keyboard layout: standard QWERTY layout with a function key to access numbers and symbols. With the limited amount of text messages we’ve sent out, all the symbols were readily accessible.
- GPS turn-by-turn functionality: GPS is AWESOME! Instead of spending the money on a Nuvee or TomTom, this phone is a great alternative. My wife and I tested the turn-by-turn feature on a trip from Wisconsin to Illinois and did not experience any errors in the route or misdirection. My only beef is that it is hard to hear over the regular phone speaker.
- GPS locator: Another great feature on the SCP 2700! You can use the GPS to locate other family members on your plan. Another name for this feature could be the “spouse finder” or “really, you said you were picking up the kids” feature. Please note this requires a separate fee.
- Account Access: you can access your minutes and plan features over the web browser.
Dislikes:
- slow data transfer speeds: slow even when turning off images
- limited browser view: because of the small, 2.2″ wide (diagonal) screen, it is difficult to see basic web pages on the screen.
- news service portals : this is probably my biggest problem with the phone, especially the news services portals set up by Sprint. I expected a listing of articles under each heading, not a featured article list of 2 that rotates. It reduces your number of choices per section.
- poor quality 1.3 megapixel camera: I took a picture and sent it via email to myself. The camera is very limited with a low resolution, no flash, and you have to have a very steady hand to get a clear picture.
- out-of-the-box theme customization: this phone is mainly for business, and offers limited out-of-the-box customization. You get only several options for ringtones, background and text color, no image for the display wallpaper (maybe I haven’t found it yet…). For a fee, you can download ringtones and other features using the content manager.
To improve: to unlock phone, have to press spacebar and back buttons, in the dark this can be very hard to do.
Overall, we’re really happy so far with the phones and would give the phone a 3.5 stars out of 5. When you get a phone like this which wasn’t meant to be a Blackberry killer and definitely not an iPhone contender, which is left to their other models.
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