Good Phone Great Texter lots of sytle

I got this along with a new 2 year contract with Sprint in Austin Texas. So all my observations are based on that network.



When i was looking for a phone there were several key features. I wanted a full keyboard for Texting. I wanted a real number pad on the front so I didn't have to hunt and peck on sub sized keys to use my cell phone for actually making a call. I didn't want it to be too big because I always carry it in my pocket. I wanted a good keygaurd to prevent accidental calls from my pocket (previously I had used flip phones). Beyond that reception and battery life were important.



The Sanyo Incognito seems like the perfect combination of what I wanted.



Overview

The Icognito is a slick looking phone when not active the key face is totally slick black with beveled edges. When you activate the front face they "keys" light up. The Front keys are touch sensitive spots on the face you don't really press them so much as tapping them on a keyboard. The keys are electostatically activated which means that you can't peck them out using a pencil or a glove it takes a bare finger or other body part (or special devices).



The screen can be locked or unlocked with a slider switch on the left hand side (you flick it and it returns to position automatically). I find the switch to be a little on the small side but your unlikely to flick it by accident. If you have keygaurd on you have to flick this switch to answer or make a call and at the end of the call (because the keygaurd goes back on after a number of seconds) you have to flick the switch again if you want to hit end call. Slightly annoying.



Pressing the keys takes a little getting used to they are VERY sensitive. Each time you tap a key it activivates the vibrate mechanism so that you get some type of tactile feedback (the whole phone vibrates) when you tap a key.



After a few days use you begin to get used to the whole thing (hitting the right keys using the keygaurd not hitting keys by accident). Its not as good as a real keypad with real buttons but its slick.



One downside I found is that if you are in a very very high moisture environment (I just got out of the shower in steamy bathroom) the front keypad will not work. The condensation on the unit prevented it from detecting the bodys electrostic signals. I took it out of the room and wiped it off and it worked fine.



Another issue I have with the front keypad is it doesn't have full functionality. You can't T9 Text assign functions to the arrows and some other stuff I could do with a conventional sanyo keypad. Also the "glow" goes away after a few seconds of not using it (saves power) but if your tapping in PIN numbers or navigating a phone menu this key be annoying (hit 2 to leave a message ahhh where is 2?) as you have to do something to activiate the light then hit your buttons.



Looking at the right side of the phone (the left side has nothing other than keygaurd) there are several buttons. One seems to call up most recent history there is the volume control the Micro SD card slot (comes with a 1Gig card) and the charging/data port. Uses the Micro USB format charger.



Flipping it open revels the real beauty of the phone. A generously sized QWERTY keyboard (be cell phone standards) and a nice 320x240 screen. They keys on the keyboard have a nice tactile response. There are keys dedicated to common IM/Texting things (smiley face @ ? and period. For less common symbols there is a FN key that lets you use the marked symbols on the key. Clicking FN will make your next key click the symbol you don't have to hold it down uless you want multiple symbols. There is a 4 way navigator pad with central OK button. One touch buttons for camera text messaging and speakerphone.



The screen and UI are nice. Its not an Iphone but nice. There is a floating strip (called the carosel) across the bottom that lets you have shortcuts to items like the web facebook any of the phone tools settings other websites etc. Really nice if your doing facebook or twitter updates. It can be personalized. The screen is sharp and crisp. In BRIGHT sunlight it is still a little dim as are the keys on the front keypad. Still usable but not vibrant.



The back of the phone contains the camera and the speaker. The camera is a 2mp CMOS unit and doesn't take especially great pictures. The speaker is pretty good. No flash or mirror for self portraits. Also the placement of the camera is such that when you activate it (By opening the keyboard and pressing buttons) your finger is usually covering it. You have to remember to move your finger. The placement of the camera button while using it is a little awkward as well. If taking really great camera phone pictures is your thing this isn't your best choice.



Functionality

So it's a cool phone but how well does it work. The answer is pretty good.



As a cell phone it has decent reception and battery life. My previous Sanyo (a basic flip model and a earlier version of the Katana) had slightly better reception but this one is pretty good. No real complains in the Austin area. The volume and clarity of the speaker are average it could certainly be louder and clearer. It is comfortable enough in the hand and thick enough to clamp between the check and shoulder. T



Battery life is good seems to run about 3.5 days of normal use (at least 5-10 calls and 10 texts a day). Recharge time is a few hours.



Texting is great. The full keyboard with generously sized keys makes typing a breeze (for a cell phone). The screen is nice and easy to read. Texts are threaded by contact and date. Adding attachments to a text would be fairly easy but they do consume KB and are not covered under just the text plan.



As far as web surfing GPS and internet use I don't know. I didn't subscribe to the data package because its not worth it right now. Looks like status updates and uploading pictures from the phone would be a breeze and I'm sure email would be nice.



So to Recap



Pro's

Slick design very clean lines

Full QWERTY Keyboard with great keys and a few extras

Decent reception and battery life

Good UI

Excellent Texter



Cons

Front touch panel has issues and lacks some functionality it could have.

Keyguard is a bit annoying

Camera is poorly placed and pictures are not top quality (even for a cellphone).

(All relate to compromises for the slick design).



Conclusion

If you are looking for a cool slick phone and you do a lot of texting and/or email this phone is an excellent choice. It's a texters dream. Its got a rich feature set good UI decent reception and battery life and the best cell phone keyboard I've ever pecked on. Its not a one trick wonder either it handles all of its tasks well and doesn't leave you wanting for much.



If your not doing significant texting or email there are better choices for phones unless your just in love with the style. It's a capable web browser but other phones with a larger touch sensitive screen would work better.



But for what I wanted and what I use it for this phone was one of the best phones out there.















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Good looks and great functionality -- what could be better than that?

I have very much looked forward to having a BlackBerry that was a cross between the Bold and the Curve. The Bold is beautiful multi-functional and has quite a nice leather-ish back plus it has both WiFi and 3G but the big size is kind of a turnoff. Besides it's on the AT&T network which is expensive since minutes data and messaging are included separately. (One of the reasons I had to cancel and give up on the iPhone 3G as much as it pained me to do so.) The Curve is smaller lighter and has WiFi on the T-Mobile network but no 3G. What is a multitasking mobile girl to do? Why I got the BlackBerry Tour 9360 of course! The Tour while beautiful and functional is not free of flaws but more on those later.



The Tour is a little larger than the Curve 8900 but not by much. It is available on the Sprint and Verizon networks and it is a CDMA/3G EV-DO phone. This replaces the old World phone. The look of it is quite nice. Black with silver/chrome edges (Verizon's Tour's edges are somewhat darker) and with a slick black finish on the back it is indeed very attractive. (However the battery cover feels a little flimsy to my taste like it would break if I accidentally dropped it.) It's got the latest BB operating system which means you will get the neon-like menus. The resolution is gorgeous much brighter than the Bold's and that is saying a lot! The QWERTY keyboard is smaller than the Bold's though and it might take some getting used to the slightly sparse keys depends on what rocks your boat. With Verizon you get VCast and with Spring you get the Sprint Music Store. Both networks are similar in speed and voice quality but I admit that the phone calls sound better on the Sprint network. You get all of the goodies -- applications from BB's App World the Mobile Office applications that go well with push e-mail (the main reason why I switched to the BlackBerry) FaceBook AIM and RIM's new multimedia functions. You can watch YouTube videos but there is no dedicated YouTube app. The phone is quite good but there are some areas that need improvement. For example:



Poor Battery Life: You will have to charge this baby up at least twice a day if you're one of those people who can't put their BlackBerry down or has to use multiple functions.



Crashes/Lags too Much: It's very frustrating to have to remove the battery put it back in and do a force reboot because of some glitch that shows up from nowhere or because the phone is lagging. I hope there will be a firmware update that will fix this problem soon.



No WiFi: I knew I had to give this wonderful function up when I decided to get this phone. Alas I still have the iPhone. Even though I can't make calls with it because I've cancelled service with AT&T I can not only still use the iPod feature but also watch YouTube videos download songs from iTunes and surf the web via Wifi. It's like an iPod Touch now really.



Doesn't Sync with a Mac: Well it can sync with a Mac but only with buggy third party software like PocketMac.



TrackBall is Tricky: It either moves too fast or doesn't move at all at times. This isn't a big deal but it's nevertheless irritating at times.



A Mediocre Browser: Even though the BB browser can now load HTML web pages it is still a far cry behind Mobile Safari (iPhone) WebOS (Palm Pre) and Android (G1). The browser is slow especially if you allow scripts to load and you need the trackball to zoom in and out and scroll up and down and side to side. Very time consuming and annoying. And no matter how much you zoom in you still have to strain your eyes to read the content.



That is all I can think of at the moment. All in all it is a good phone one of the best smartphones on the market now in fact. If you're not into touchscreen (I do but having used the iPhone I wanted my next phone not to be touchscreen) and love BlackBerry then get the Tour. It's got a more updated look plus all the things you love about the BB. Choose which network works best for you. As for me I chose the Sprint network because of its affordable data/voice/messaging package bundle and good network capabilities in this area. However the Verizon version has a more marketable appeal to it even with the complaints about call quality and whatnot. It's your choice.More detail ...

Amazing phone! Get one TODAY - you'll be glad you did!

First let me say I've had about a half-dozen cell phones (both personal and work talk-only to PDAs) so I've had and tried many phones. The Samsung Rogue simply blew the rest of them all away!



We put off moving the family from T-Mobile to Verizon and put off getting the LG Touch when we heard online that the Samsung Rogue was going to come out soon (Thanks Boy Genius Report!) We are SO glad we waited.



A STUNNING screen (AMOLED) touch screen and an INCREDIBLE 3.0MP camera with an amazing number of features that all JUST WORK! I went to try the camera phone turned it horizontal and thought "gee in this position the rocker buttons normally on the right are now on top and I wonder if they work now like a zoom feature on a regular camera?" And they DID. When listening to video and vertical the volume rocker on the left is up for louder and down for lower like you'd expect. What surprised me (in a GOOD way) is that when the phone is horizontal the top volume rocker (that is now pointing left) is actually for lowering the volume - just like you'd expect in that configuration. Amazing.



I tell you I'd buy Samsung ANY DAY over most if not all other brands. They just plain know how to make solid feature packed items! (Anyone else tired of cheap Chinese junk! Buy Samsung - they're Korean and know what they are doing!) I wish they made cars! (Samsung that is.)



The only thing so far that I've found I wish was a little better is when searching apps on Verizon's site with the phone - when you slide your finger on the screen to roll up to see more folders (in the games for example) I tried to scroll up twice in quick succession and it took my movements to be two clicks instead of 2 slides and I nearly ended up purchasing something! Yikes. Glad they ask you one more time if you are sure. I'm just more careful now in that area.



My last comment is about Verizon's app store not the phone - I wish you could download a demo so you could see if you liked something rather than only having either a monthly fee OR flat out purchase. I'd like to "TRY before Buying" not "Rent and maybe then buy anyway."



In Summary I've only just started using this phone over the last 2 days and I can't wait to keep finding out more about it. This should be a very easy phone to love for the 2 years of my contract with Verizon. Make yourself happy and GET A SAMSUNG ROGUE today!!!More detail ...

WOW! SUPER BATTERY LIFE GREAT PHONE!!!

I got this when I first came out and I am sure glad I did Verizon is out of stock! Let me share with this phone does it all-tough rugged but modern and all the basics needed! Let me walk through this in order of features I love!



1. Battery Life-Hate charging your phone daily? This is FOR YOU..... A CHARGE WITH FULL USE FOR FOUR DAYSSS! WOW! I use my phone SEVERAL HOURS DAILY and text all the time and this phone goes down ONE bar in four days! WOW! I love it ...don't even need a car charger!



2. ADJUSTABLE SIZE FONTS FOR TEXTING AND OTHER THINGS-for us middle aged and older folks this is great! Can adjust size of fonts for texting wow! Quick text enables you to simply push a button and send a pre-picked phrase (running late call me asap etc) and you can add your own phrases and delete at will!



3. GREAT SPEAKERPHONE. works well loud and great voice command and Bluetooth connection!



4. Tunes-who needs an iphone and pay tons of bucks a month? Download your own tunes!! MP 3 player



5. Military Spec-water salt fog altitude shock dust solar cold resistant.....this phone is a manly phone thick but still fits in pocket well. Rubber side grips.



6. DON'T NEED TO OPEN FOR ACCESS-can text read texts and check voice mail without opening flip



(BTW lots of folks complain you cant' see the clock as it is not always on -I like that saves battery and you can push a button to get time if you want. You CAN leave clock always on but this will shorten battery life.



7. PTT Don't use this feature but is a nice one.



8. VZ Nav for directions and automatic location finder to track kids or elderly and find location of phone (and them) on Verizon site.



THIS PHONE IS SUPER.....NOT FANCY NOT BELLS AND WHISTLES< but solid LONG battery life and great Verizon service! More detail ...

I on the otherhand

really do like this cell phone

i just purchased it with an upgrade i had avaible to me.

& it's everything i hoped for the touchscreeen is good

texting is easy enough the whole cell phone in general is easy to use too.



if you have expectations of getting a high tech touchscreen phone

then don't get this but if you're looking for a cute modern phone

with good qualty and capability like i was then i would recommend this to you(:More detail ...

A mixed bag

I both love and hate this phone. I love the Android operating system. It's very elegant and easy to use. The Market is filled with Apps and I was able to find an app for everything that I needed to do. I've used several different Android phones and generally found that the Android OS is reliable and stable. The phone and the user interface is also visually appealing. Simply put the phone and the OS are beautiful.



HTC is known for adding its own modifications to the internal OS on all of its phones and this one is no exception. HTC has modified Android on this phone to make it better looking and in some cases easier to use. However those modifications may also have introduced problems as I'll explain below.



There also seem to be some serious build quality issues at HTC. The first phone that I got experienced an intermittent problem that caused the voice recognition feature to never work the first time. If more than 30 seconds passed and I tried to use it it would be wrong the first time no matter what I said. This was a minor issue but there's really no reason why it should have occurred on one phone and not on another. I got a replacment phone and the voice recognition now works but it takes forever (up to 20 seconds after I stop talking) to work at times. There are a ton of posts on the internet about voice dialing problems on this phone and so I'm not the only one complaining.



Voice dialing is a major issue with this phone because the phone lacks any tactile keys. When you're driving and you want to make a call you can dial on a phone with a regular keypad by touch. Since this phone has no keys you either have to look at the keypad or you have to use voice dialing. Voice dialing on other phones (including the Samsung Moment and even my very old Motorola RAZR) can work very very well. Unfortunately on this phone it just doesn't.



HTC also makes the Google Nexus One and it too has had a mixed reception on quality issues.



Even worse my first Hero also had repeated crashes of software that should have worked fine including the application that you use to program the phone with your phone # and MSID. These are basic phone functions and they really shouldn't crash.



My second phone continues to have application crashes for apps that I know should work fine and do work fine on other phones. For example today the telephone dialer application crashed. The telephone dialer application is the application that gives you a dialpad so you can use the phone. It's a basic application and shouldn't EVER crash. Yet on the HTC Hero it crashed for me today.



I suspect that HTC's modifications to Android are responsible as the problems have occurred on two different HTC Hero phones and I've found that other Android phones are very reliable.



While HTC's modifications make the Android OS visually appealing they also replace text based labels which are easy to understand with often confusing icons. HTC's modifications also make the phone take about 30 seconds longer to boot-up. There is simply no reason why HTC needed to do this to its customers. Honestly I'd rather they at least give me the option to disable their enhancements...



(Update: Apparently you can disable at least SOME of them: Go to the Home Screen Press MENU button Press Settings Press Applications Press Manage Applications wait for the OS to compute application usage Scroll down the list until you see HTC Sense and select it to go to the Application Info page Press the Clear Defaults button Press the HOME button. You will be prompted to select which app to compete the action with. Select Home and chose to make this the default action. If you want SenseUI back follow the same steps but instead of selecting "HTC Sense" from the applications list select the application called "Home" (not the HOME button) and then clear the defaults.)



The processor may also be a bit slow. I've noticed on several occasions that the phone seemed to miss the fact that I pushed on certain buttons. For example in order to answer calls on an HTC modified phone you have to swipe your finger down the screen. On several occasions I've actually missed calls because the phone didn't register my swipe until the call went to voicemail.



Why not just use the hard buttons? Good question! The layout of the call and answer buttons makes them very hard to use for someone with medium to large size hands so its difficult to push one of them without also pushing one of the other nearby buttons. The speakerphone volume is also a bit low making it almost useless when you're in a car.



Also if you have a bluetooth headset and you're used to using the button on it to activate voice dialing you're going to be disappointed. For some reason HTC didn't properly implement that feature. So if you push the button on your bluetooth headset or speakerphone nothing happens. Again this is a basic feature built into most phones nowadays and it surprises me that HTC didn't implement it on their flagship Android phone.



I've also used a Motorola Cliq (which also runs Android) and the Samsung Moment and found them to be quite reliable. The Moment definitely has a better screen is a little larger than the Hero and has a slide-out keyboard. Given my experience thus far I think that I like the Moment better. Although it's a bit larger and I don't really care about a slide out keyboard I can't stand the apps crashing on the HTC Hero..More detail ...

Great phone and great service.

I usually don't write reviews but I just want make a few comments about Tracfone. I got my Motorola tracfone stolen a month ago and Tracfone was kind enough to transfer my minutes (over 1000) to a new Tracfone. They didn't have to do this but they did. As far as the phone goes - this Motorola w376 is the best tracfone you can get. It feels solid it has great battery life camera good clearity and unlimited double minutes. The tracfone service is very good. I've never been unable to use my phone and I travel alot and everywhere. To sum it up this is a great phone and a great company and you can't go wrong here.More detail ...

Wow can a smart phone be this small?

As a Pre owner and user I understand the power of the WebOS multitasking. It truly blows everything else out of the water in the speed of getting things done. The iPhone feels like walking in quicksand after this.



I expected the Pixi to be slower than the Pre. It isn't. For some things it is faster. Word Whirl on both devices feels exactly the same. This is an extremely light and small smart phone. It feels great in the hand and the keyboard is one of the better I've used in the past years.



While I now own both I will primarily use my Pre for two reasons: Camera and WiFi. The Camera on the Pixi is better than Centro and about equal to many cell phones. The resolution difference (2 vs 3 MP) doesn't mean anything to me. The issue is with the light sensitivity of the sensor. The Pre is much better. Since my home location is right on the border of good Sprint data WiFi is a requirement.



If I was always in a good data coverage I would be hard pressed to not choose the Pixi over the Pre. It is a cool phone. You won't get more functionality for under $30.More detail ...