• Samsung N-400 - by em3one
• Samsung N-400 - by cewyatt
• Sanyo 4900 - by he love me
• Sanyo 4900 - by Grumpy
• Sanyo 5300 - by Kevin
• Nokia 3588i - by he love me
• Sanyo 5400 (RL2500)
• Sanyo 5500 (VM4500)

Okay, This phone's styling was it's huge selling point... I've always been partial to the flip phone. Protected keys, small size, easy to carry... But functionality... This phone has ZERO.

I've had 4 other sprint phones... And I have always had nothing but great things to say about them... Until I took this piece of junk out of it's box.

Top Problems (out of many)

1) Poor Signal Quality - I've always been able to make calls from anywhere I frequent, with any other phone. This one... I have to be standing/sitting in exactly the right position to get ANY signal. (meanwhile, my girlfriend's Sanyo 4900 has a full signal right next to me.)

2) Problematic Software - a) You've finished a phone call, hit the "end" button... But wait, the phone "doesn't feel like" hanging up. Opening/closing the flip doesn't disconnect the call. No key presses do the job. Don't even think about trying to power off. It won't happen. If you're not paying attention, this flaw can do major damage to your plan minutes, and sprint won't do anything to correct the lost time.

b) Can't explain this one... Everyone on the phone book calls in a 5 minute time span. Only - no one ever called. Every phone number I have showed up in my missed call log. Calling a couple friends back to find that they never called. Unreliable call logs - hope no one needs something important when the N400 decides to pull this stunt.

c) Ahh... And now, on to the web browser. Nice presentation, easy to use... But very very picky about what sites you attempt to download any kind of media from. "No Content Available" and "Restart Browser" become all too familiar screens.

Many more software issues, but I'd be here all night.

3) Charging problems - I can place this phone on the charger, and half the time the phone will not charge, only cycle through the start-up animation endlessly.

4) Call Quality - It's only okay... And that's when you have a decent signal. Lots of faded signals and garbled conversation.

All of these problems have gotten progressively worse since I purchased the phone... And now, two months after it's purchase, and outside of any return policy, I'm stuck having to shell out another $200 on a new phone. Hopefully this will save someone the trouble and headache of owning this phone. Could have been a great phone... But Samsung rushed this product through development, as has become obvious. My rating:

1 out of 10

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by em3one edited by Kevin
last modified: 2003-05-13 20:57:01

I purchased two Samsung N400 phones to use with SprintPCS. Perhaps in another area better served by SprintPCS I would have a better review. I will try to limit my opinion to the phone itself, though.

As noted by the first review, the signal quality for this phone is terrible. It has big problems maintaining a usable signal, and just slight movement can make a huge difference. Walking around while talking is a game of russian roulette, you WILL lose your signal but you just don't know where. Using the PCS Vision online service is also a crap shoot. Most times it will hang on logging in, other times you just get the "service not available" message. When I'm lucky I'll actually get logged in and can move around. But don't depend on it. As to battery life for this phone, there is none. The standard battery seems to fluctuate on life. One day it may last all day long, another (even though getting the same usage) it may crap out mid-day. I purchased the extended life batteries but they exhibit the same fluctuation. Some times I can leave the phone sitting for several days and it will still have a full or nearly full charge. Other times, even though having the same usage, a charge will not last a full day. I've had the phone charged fully, made a call and will have been talking only a few minutes when I'll get a low-battery warning. It is as if the phone randomly uses power or can't decide how to read the battery level. After 5 months I have still not figured out a pattern to it. I never know when picking up my phone to head out of the house whether I can expect to have a good battery or not. Yet another crap shoot. And Samsung does not make a desktop charger, so the battery MUST be on the phone in order to charge it, a definite minus.

I had such good hopes for this phone, the styling is superb, the layout ideal. But Samsung really dropped the ball on the programming. When my contract is up, these two phones are going into the dustbin.

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by cewyatt edited by Kevin
last modified: 2003-05-22 10:36:38

The Sanyo 4900 was recommended to me by a Sprint salesman. Let's just say that the phone has been nearly flawless in reception, call quality and overall performance.

I chose to test the phone in various locations such as hospitals, malls, classrooms, open fields, traveling on the road, and at home. The 4900 picked up strong signals in all locations except for one particular building on campus, however nor did Cingular or AT&T service which I also tested. The most satisfactory performance was the call clarity while driving on the expressway. My wife stated that she could not tell that I was on a cell phone because you could not hear any background noise. I immediately called her back on the Cingular(nokia 6340i) and the AT&T(nokia 8265) and she could hear everything except for the sound of my voice clearly.

The only two complaints that I have about the phone is that sometimes the phone has like a hollow or muffled tone while talking. The second complaint is the limited function of the vibrate mode, it only works while the setting is on high or vibrate alone.

I give the phone 8.9 out of 10.

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by he love me edited by Kevin
last modified: 2003-05-13 20:57:17

I am very pleased with the Sanyo 4900. It is a good-looking phone with a brushed silver case, and a handsome color screen. All the buttons are big enough for my mitt, and none of them require a fingernail only approach like some mini phones. The menus are very well laid out and intuitive, and the phone is a joy to use. Mine was an early release, and callers would complain of their voice echoing back to them. It turns out that a free software upgrade at the Sprint store fixed the problem, and now all is well. The number of options and gee gaws and choices on the phone are enough to keep you busy for an hour or three to figure them all out, but all is easy to navigate and select. I am used to an older Nokia 5125, so this Sanyo was a warp speed leap in technology. Little features are nice, like a distinctive ring to let me know that an inbound call is occurring while roaming, and also the option to pause to press "OK" an extra time while calling out roaming. My wife & kids all have this phone as well, so the roaming alerts are kind to my wallet. A built in voice memo recorder and a calculator and calendar are nice features too. I am still exploring the many options, like voice dialing, text messaging, web based audio/visual content & programming, and so forth. This is a great phone. I can't imagine someone not being happy with one. Depending on your calling plan, Sprint sells them for around $50, and I have seen the 4900's at Circuit City & Radio Shack for "free", but it is likely that "free" means you will pay more on the other end.

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by Grumpy edited by Kevin
last modified: 2003-05-13 20:57:29

The Sanyo 5300 was the first phone in the US that had an embedded camera. It is by far the best phone I've ever used. It's easy to use, and has a ton of features, there are a few faults, but they are easily forgiven.

First I'll start out with the camera. It's a small cam that's built into the front part of the flip, it's adjacent to the small LED flash. The camera takes pictures at 640x480, which barely gets the job done. The low resolution could be forgiven if it took nice pictures. I'm not saying the pictures are horrible, but more often than not they come out very blurry. When there is a lot of light it washes out the image. There is plenty of room for improvement on the camera.

The interface for the phone is easy to use, it's very similar to other Sprint phones. The display on the inside of the flip is phenomenal, it is bright, and shows a ton of colors and can be seen very well in direct sunlight. The outside display show less colors than the inside, but it does it's job very well.

The RF performance of the phone is great, just like other Sanyo phones. I've been using Sanyo phones for some time now and am always impressed with their performance. If you live on a fringe area I would highly recommend any Sanyo model.

Overall, good phone, good features, but room for improvement.

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by Kevin
last modified: 2003-05-13 20:57:40

I Just got the nokia 3588i from Sprint. 4 stars out of 5

PROS
1. Free phone
2. Very nice ringtones (very loud)
3. Reception is better than my Sanyo 4900( can't believe it though)
4. Crystal Clear Sound.
5. Earpiece is very good
6. Color Phone
7. text messaging is installed but not ready yet.

CONS
1. No vision
2. no Camera
3. Antennae is very weak.

Overall, this phone is a perfect fit for my wife and i. We don't use vision but were thinking about getting it sometime in the future. Earpiece volume is on par with Sanyo 8100. Reception is just fantastic, i was even able to pull a strong signal at my mom's house where the Sanyo 4900 was constantly looking for service.

Very good reliable phone for someone who is not looking for a lot of extras.

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by he love me edited by Kevin
last modified: 2003-12-22 08:52:28

This is by far the best phone I have ever owned. If you are looking for a camera phone , stop reading because the Sanyo 5400 doesn't have one. The battery life of this phone is not good at all so get the extended battery it is well worth it. The screen is bright and you can see it well even in sunlight. The sound of the earpiece is clear but beware of people who like to shout while they are talking to you. Signal strengh seems to show 5 to 3 bars all the time but don't go by that as Sanyos tend to read high. That being said the signal strengh really is great can get reception in places some of my other phones could not. The speaker phone is plenty loud and clear although from what I have read it is only 1/2 duplex.

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by hep cat edited by Kevin
last modified: 2004-02-24 15:24:20

The first thing I would like to say is that this phone is the sturdiest of all sprint phones I've ever had. (4500,4900,5300 models). I have a bad habit of dropping my phones, and dropped this one 20 minutes after taking it out of the box, but It still looks fresh and I don't keep in in a leather case or holster (I bought it about a week after they were introduced).

Talk time is advertised at 3.5 hours, but I've talked for much longer before the battery even started showing a drain in power. I've done as much as maybe 5 hours of talk time, up to 8 hours before total dead battery.

The video camera is nice for a start, but could use some improvement. The camera IMO is much better in this model from my previous 5300. Pictures are very clear. I like the online "photo album" it keeps so friends can see what I'm up to.

The speakerphone is heaven. I can talk using the speaker with the phone in the closed position (with headset) and my callers say they can't tell the difference whether I'm on speaker or talking regularly.

The polyphonic rings sound very nice as I like to use customized ringers, and the stock ringers that are included aren't too bad. The first phone I've used stock ringers.

Some of the trinkets are nice, such as the "buddy" it has, I have a little dog and I sometimes like to watch him do things just for boredom's sake. There's also an LED light that blinks when I'm on the phone, and when the phone rings also, and the LED light pattern is customizable.

The only feature I haven't taken advantage of is the Ready Link, mainly because I only know a small handful of people that subscribe to Sprint, but I've heard some great things about it. All in all, I would give this phone a top notch rating.

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by pcdebb edited by Optimized
last modified: 2004-07-07 00:17:59