SOLID phone with a great Body! Just a few quibbles
Written: Jul 05 '02 (Updated Jul 05 '02)
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Pros: Great design, small size, useful external LCD
Cons: Odd address book, menus a bit deep, not enough letters for LCD in addressbook
The Bottom Line: A fine compact cell phone that does everything as advertised, with a few quirks that keep it out of the 5 star range!
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| kenfused's Full Review: LG SP510/TP1100 Cell Phone |
I had been using a Nokia 6185 for some time, and although I loved the menus on it, I found that it was getting to be too much of a beast compared to the tiny phones everyone was carrying around. I'm glad I picked the Touchpoint 1100.
First of all the design of the phone is excellent. It's very compact, one of the smallest flip phones out there (only the Touchpoint 5250 is smaller currently) and it has an easy to read display, including a caller ID, signal strength, time on the outside display when closed. The display on the inside is very easy to read, and the backlight turns on automatically.
The strengths of the phone include it's wide range of options for phonebook. You can have a single person with 3 different phone numbers instead of inputting them all individually under separate listings. There are custom ring settings, although you cannot compose your own ringtones or download new ringtones. The ringtones are nice, but are not as high quality as on the newer Touchpoint 5250. The Touchpoing 5250 includes the ability to play really nice MIDI tones. There is an included Calculator, Blackjack & puzzle games. There of course is a vibrate "ringtone", but unlike the Nokia phones, you cannot have the audio ringer AND the vibrate feature on together, which I would have preferred.
The menus although full featured, and very intuitive are somewhat "deep". It may take 4-7 buttons pressed to find someone on your address book and call them. The Nokia menus are much easier to navigate thru (on the Nokia 6100 or 3360 series). On the phonebook, for example, if you want to find "Home", as you enter in the letters "H-O-M-E" you will first find "Mark Ho" or "Jim Home". Somehow the phonebook does not pick the first letter of the entering keys, and go straight only to the "H" section. And as you scroll thru the phonebook, it is kept in the order you ENTERED the names, not Alphabetical. Also, the LCD needs a few extra letters so you can fit long names into it.
Signal strengh is better than I expected in this small phone, about the same as the Nokia 6185 that I had before.
Voice quality is also very good, esp. when used without a headset. I had no problems connecting all over California on the SpintPCS network, and very few dropped calls. If you have a problem you can take the phone to Sprint and have them do a PRL upgrade that updates the Firmware in the phone to find more Antennas. The use of the headset is not quite as good as the Nokia one, but at least it includes a 2.5mm jack built in like most phones today. One thing, I wish they had left out the plastic/rubber seal thing to keep dust out, because I'm not worried about the dust, and it's a pain to peel that thing out of the way before using a headset.
Battery life is good, needing to be charged about every 2.5 days with average use. The package includes a cradle style charger which I like, compared to most phones which include a plug in style charger. I wish they would have included the car charger and headset in the package though.
Overall the phone is very easy to operate and I am very happy with it. Someday I may trade up to the 5250 or upcoming 5350, because of it's more compact size, better ringtones, and overall style. The Touchpoint 1100 is a solid value that is well worth the money!
Final word of warning... If you decide to get a car charger, Avoid the temptation to get an el cheapo $1 charger thru semi-reputable sources on Ebay. I had one, and it was junk!! I just got a quality third party one from Belkin @ Best Buy. You can test your existing charger by disconnecting the battery, and simply plugging it into the car charger. If you can power the phone on, and the battery meter gives full charge indication, you have a good one!!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75
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Epinions.com ID:
kenfused
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 56
Trusted by: 10 members
About Me:
Love consumer electronics and saltwater tropical fish!
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