.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Ontario Technoblog

Ontario Emperor technology blog.

This blog has been superseded by the mrontemp blog
Name:
Location: Ontario, California, United States

Sometime audio artist. Email comments on this blog to the gmail account mrontemp.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Uncool Phones

I'm not the only one who recites the mantra I Am Not Trendy:

Looking for a cool, new cutting-edge mobile phone? This isn't the review series for you. Like many users, I wanted a phone that does a good job acting like a phone. Me, I can no longer afford "cool" -- I accidentally destroyed my last phone, didn't have insurance, and don't feel like shelling out big bucks for a hip, high-end model....

[T]here are two types of cheap cell phones: the bare-bones models that excel in the basics, such as the Nokia 2128i [see BW Online, 1/24/06, "Nokia's Bare Essentials 2128i"], and those that try to take on the nicer phones, often with little success.

The LG C2000, sadly, is among the latter. While it boasts a lot of extra features -- from an instant-messenger service to a built-in digital camera -- it hasn't mastered the task I most need: making calls. Voice quality is poor and battery life is short. In short, I'd look elsewhere....

While thrifty users willing to sacrifice other features to have a camera phone might pick this inexpensive option, I would stay away. For everybody else on Cingular, the Samsung X497 is a similar model with comparable features that gets the job done right.