Extensive Rreview of the Sanyo SCP 6200 - The Final say in Cell Phones?
Written: Sep 15 '02
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Pros: Ultra Small Light Stylish Durable well designed - Excellent Feature Set
Cons: Ringers could be a wee bit louder. otherwise there really is none.
The Bottom Line: The Epitome of what a portable phone should be.
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| nerys71's Full Review: Sanyo SCP 6200 Cell Phone |
I was drooling over the prototype of this phone years ago when I saw it at CES in Las Vvegas.
Finally the 6200 is released with dual band ability and better battery life. That plus the $127 price tag on a refurbished model at Radio Shack Sealed the deal.
To me this phone is the prime example of what a cell phone should be. It is so nice and so refined and so ideal that there are no faceplates and other sometimes tacky add-ons needed since it is almost perfect just as it is.
I also purchased a car charger and a Connection kit with software for this phone. I got the connection kit for $39.95 plus tax and $8 shipping direct from sprint and got in the very next day in the mail (fedex) The Car Charger I got on ebay for $1 plus $3 shipping :-)
Lets get to the phone.
Physically the phone is idealic in nature. Ultra Thin without being so thin that you fear snapping it in half. it does not "feel" like theres nothing in your hand. it feels just perfect. Some may not like how the Antennae "extension tube" disturbs the lines but I think they add to it. and then you hold it in yuor hand and realize your finger rests in that nook where the 2 parts smoothly meet like it was designed that way (and probably was) Oddly this nook works for right and left handed folks even though it is not centered. the phone is less than 1/2 an inch think
Width wise it is as wide as it needs to be and no more. Some phone are too crammed with a thin keypad and a wide border around the edge. this phone is as narrow as those other phone but the keyboard utilizes the full width of the body. I have some pretty massive hands (6'3" 360pounds) and it fits me like a glove. that is impressive considering how small this phone is. (1.5" wide)
Length wise it is taller than it needs to be from a technical point of view but the PERFECT height from an asthetics and usability point of view. It makes it look even more elegant and slender than it already is. a Nice tall screen with plenty of room without resorting to ultra small resolutions. (8 lines 15 character per line 4 shades of gray) the mic is near you mouth instead of in your cheek.
Keypad layout. this area was my only gripe. The menu and clear buttons are oddly placed at the bottom. I see why since there is no room left. I would rather them have placed the "web" button on the bottom (I will never use this feature) and place the menu bottom under the screen with the memo button (already there). This is an extremely minor gripe. Simple personal preference. one who uses the wireless web feature will probably prefer it the way it is. after a half a dozen times you forget that its down there and it is natural to use it.
The Structural makeup of the phone.
The phone is silver in color. not tacky but a nice well refined silver. parts of the face are a magnesium alloy for durability and aesthetics.
The Keypad - this is a favorite of mine. The Keypad on this phone is nothing short of totally ideal. Perfect as far as I can tell in every way.
The keys are silver backed but translucent so they illuminate with the backlighting. So in daylight or night time they look perfect and never out of place.
I said silver backed because the keys themselves are TRANSPARENT smooth plastic. the "printing" (nubmers letters etc..) are UNDER the smooth clear buttons. when you think about this it will HIT you all of a sudden if you have had previous cell phone experience. The printing will never "wear out" or "rub off" making the face of the phone look nasty old and ugly. Kudos to sanyo on this excellent design feature.
The 5 key has a dimple on it making non visual dialing possible. once you feel the dimple you know you are on the 5 in the center of the number pad.
The center OK button nested in the middle of the 4 way toggle is the only surface printed button BUT it appears to have a nice clear enamel coating on top of it to protect the printing.
Illumination
This is another area where I think this phone excels. the entire keypad lights up a soft green. The screen illuminates exceptionally bright in either Soft Green or Orange. I like the orange but prefer the extra brightness of the green. a little personal tid bit, it would have been nice if the keypad also changed to orange when you changed the screen to orange. but this is very minor. Ontop of the phone is a red led that illuminates when it needs your attention such as a call or voicemail etc..
The backlighting is customizable further in how long you want it to stay on. 8,15,30 seconds. always off or always on. I have it set to 30 seconds. I would have preffered one more option. always on sometimes. IE when I am using the phone stay on all the time. then goto 30 seconds when I finish a call. This would simplify finding the end button to finish a call. Again a very minor nitpick.
Other Misc Physical attributes.
It has an extendable antennae. I find I rarely have to extend it though in my area. right at the top on theleft side is the now standard 2.5mm headset jack (thanks for not requiring funky bulky inconvenient adaptor sanyo)
On the back next to the antennae is anothe rubber covered flush port. I am assuming some kind of tech hookup diagnoistics port. it is flush. I only noticed it cause the cover was rubber and curiosity got the better of me :-)
on the botton is your "contact patch" jack for the charger and serial adaptor cables etc..
Power
The phone uses a very cool very thin extremely tiny battery pack. In this miny pack they managed to jam 860mah of lithium power at 3.7volts. This is enough for over 3 hours of talk time and a week of standby time. An extended life pack is available (ebay about $20) that is a little thicker out the back but I see no point as the normal pack is more than sufficient at least for someone like me.
On removing the battery you realize that the phone is only a little heavier than the battery pack !! I would "guess" at the ratio being %60 phone %40 battery mass wise.
The AC power supply is impressively small and portable. as is the DC power supply I aquired from ebay. The phone charges very quickly (so far in well under 2 hours). I believe it is rated at 3 hours from a totally dead battery for the AC supply. The cable is nice and long and thin without being frail.
Glorious Features
At first when I rattle off the features one may think that is not too impressive since many phones have these features. This is until you realize that this phone has these features INTERNAL !! IE "NO EXTRA SERVICE OPTIONS" from your supplier are required !
Voice Command
You can program upto 30 voice commands and attach them to numbers in your phone book (the phone book can hold 299 entries and has MANY fields for each entry), 30 truly is more than enough for just about ANY individual out there. I am not even using half of them. Setting it up is very simple and it is astonishingly accurate. It has yet to fail to properly reognize my requests except when I had the car radio too loud :-) in these cases it does not make a mistake it simply can not hear me and tells me so.
Screen Calls
This is essentially VOICEMAIL INSIDE the phone !! You can set the delay from 1-16 seconds (how long it will wait before picking up) so I leave it at 16 seconds except for example if I got into a movie theatre. I then set it for 1 sec. it rings a microsecond "blip" that I can just barely hear so I know I got a call but no one else hears this and it takes a message. they can leave upto an 18 second message. I know it can hold at least 5x 18 second messages. it was not full and I simply did not try to put anymore on it. I would imaging holding a dozen maessage shoudl be doable (I will have to try it sometime and see how many I can get into it)
The sound quality is very nice. You can also record your own custom "greeting" into this feature. you can also LISTEN in. just put the phone to yoru ear and you will hear them leaving a message. if you want to talk you can simply hit talk and you will be talking to the person who is leaving a message (hence why its called call screening)
Although most providers give you vmail for free some do not AND on all of them you have to CALL INTO the system to GET your message and this consumes AIRTIME minutes. Call Screening is in phone memory so you just hit the memo key (just below LCD on right) This memo key also allows you to record yor own audio memos into the phone such as where you parked your car or a phone number on a forsale sign etc..
It has primative PDA functions as well. the address book can sync with outlook but not the calendar data (it has a calendar that you can set appointments in etc..) as well as a surprisingly handy calculator. It also has some crab catch the falling things game (boring to me as I am not a gamer) and a world clock (nice)
Sound and Pictures !
Another cool feature is Ringers and Pictures !!! I can upload custom "midi" ringers as well as images via the computer connection cable. I can attach images to people in my phone book so for example when my brother calls and it recognizes his caller ID it displays this on the screen as well as his picture. I can also assign custom "ringers" to each person. So when my friend david calls the phone meows and shows me a picture of his face. :-) very cool !! this kind of "customization and of personalization" is the kind of stuff I want in a gadget like this. These features make the phone MORE userfriendly not cumbersome and tedious.
My normal ringers are the Yapappa song from Ranma 1/2 or the A-Team theme song :-)
The phone has a pleathora of other options and features. above I listed the primary features or features that differentiate it from other phones.
Gripes and growns
This is an unusual gadget. Normal my reviews even when stellar for the object come off as nasty sometimes. I tend to find a lot wrong with things and even though they are usually "minor" hence why I say read the whole review. I found surprisingly little wrong with this gadget. It truly is almost perfect.
One thing that bugged me in the beginning was the tendency of the phone to get a bit warm in the ear piece after talking for some time. Not dangerous painful or uncomfortable at all. Just worrisome. I have since found this is "normal" for this phone so my worries are gone.
Although images are very nice it would have been nice for them to have more than 4 shades of grey. even 8 shades would have been magnitudes better.
It would be nice if the call screening "audio memos" were "attached" to there respective caller id entries so I could "return" a call with a button push. they may very well be but I have not found this connection. this is a minor nit though since I will usually recognize the people and can just press talk and speak there name to call them back with voice dialing.
My only other nit is I wish the phone was compatible with other service providers. although I have had no problems with sprint. Even though there plans are the worst deal (dollar per minutes in monthly planes etc..) they still give me far more minutes than I am likely to use in a month by far. where I think I will run into trouble is when I travel. sprint has far less coverage than say verizon and they charge 69cents a minute for roaming. Ouch :-) alas I do not travel every week or anything like that.
Another nice feature is that I can dial into the internet with my own internet provider with the cable connetion and it will only consume my normal airtime minutes. Some services charge you extra if they see you using a modem even if you are not using there proprietary internet connection services. How well this will work I am not sure as I have not tried it yet.
The future
If I were to have a hand in designing SCP-6200 version 2 these are the changes I would make.
Do not change the physical dimensions of design. swap the menu and web buttons. make the keypad change orange as well. or add a color screen if that can be done without making it ANY thicker at all. and lastly make the ringer just a teeny bit louder. internal ringers are plenty loud but some midi ringers not optimized for "phone" use are a bit on the low volume side. Otherwise the phone is perfect as is.
I am sick of the push for all in once devices that are too limted and or too complex. When I want a phone I only want a phone. The Sanyo 6200 does this gloriously and with style. All its amazing "gadget" features once activated are "transparent" to the user. they "enhance" the expreience transparently without adding day to day compelxity bulkiness or annoyance. Well Done Sanyo.!
Epinions ratings below are not nearly detailed enough so here are clarifications.
Durability
although NOT indestructable it is very well built and will easily outlive itself if properly cared for.
Clarity
Sound is impressive. Not stellar make me stand up and say wow but I never have a problem hearing anyone. My father when I first called him was quite impressed as well with how I sounded to him (he goes through a lot of phones so he has some experience here)
Portability
Easily an in the shirt pocket with no bulging or sagging of your shirt phone. do not stick it in your pants pocket especially your back pants pocket. for as well as this phone is built it IS only .46 inches thick plus in your back pocket is begging for it to be stolen. it weighs just over 2 ounces !!!
Battery Life
Rated at 3.5 hours talk time (over 7or8 I believe with the extended battery) and a week standby on normal battery. So far my experience agrees with these numbers.
Bottom Line
If you want gadgety features like web browsing and remote controls and funky face place then no don't get this phone, However, if you want a classy phone that excels in every category as ONLY a phone and does it with quite refined style then this is without question your phone. although this will browse the web who wants to do it on a tiny lcd screen ? I could never figure that one out :-)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 127.00
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Epinions.com ID:
nerys71
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Member: Chris Taylor Jr.
Location: Edgely, PA
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I Love Rockets, Airplanes, and off course Gadgets :-)
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