Cheap but not tacky (Panasonic X70)

Member Name: nereesa85

Product:	Panasonic X70
Date:	29/09/05 (481 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good looks, great features, great price.

Disadvantages: the case scratches and its not great for games (Its a phone not a PSP!!!)

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Why this phone?
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I got this phone given for xmas 2004. It was on my wish list as I had tried to get it on contract previously and was turned down due to having no credit history. I had a good look around all the phones available at the time and judged this to be the best for features and looks.

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Looks
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The phone is rather small for a flip phone. It's only 2.5cm deep with the door closed which I think is diddy compared to other ones that I was looking at. I'ts 10.5cm long (including the ariel) and 4.5cm wide. Its not a teeny tiny phone but it's small enough to fit comfotably into my trouser pockets and easily lost in my bag. (along with everything else!)
The phone is all silver with a shiny metalic silver around the display, camera lens, light and mirror on the cover. The battery and headphone ports are protected by a grey rubber. The phone looks very stylish until you've had it for a few months. I'm not the sort of person who treats my phone with infinite amounts of care. Im not overly clumsy but I do drop them and drop things on them sometimes. As a result the cover is now chipped and scratched. The paintwork scratches easily through general wear and tear and starts to look scruffy before long. You cant change the cover so you're stuck with it Im afraid. Though my nail technician friend nail varnished her's to make it look very groovy. I wont be trying this as ill get it alover the screen knowing me!

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Menus and features
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The phone is so easy to use, it baisically tells you what to do on the screen (good for all you Nokia fanatics!). All the features and menus are easy to find because they are exactly where you expect them to be.
There is a comprehensive settings menu so you can change absolutely everything.Even the colour that flashes on the cover's display when you get a phone call or SMS etc.
The phonebook is brilliant. You can have up to four numbers per name, three email addresses, their title, company name, a note about them, a photo, put them into a group (thats a type of contact e.g. family, friends etc) and you can specify a ring tone for when they call you. You can set up voice dialling and switch between the phone's memory and sim memory. You can store up to 500 contacts in the phone book.
The games menu allows you to update your list of games for free, buy games and play the games stored on your phone.
The Web browser isn't bad either. You can't browse for free if you're on pay as you go and so you need to chose how you pay. I use GPRS which charges you for the amount you download. You can set it to WAP which charges you for the amount of time you are using the browser. There is a huge range of info and a full list of websites that you can visit. You don't have to only visit mobile websites as you can enter a URL and visit google and ebay for example.
The messaging is easy to use. You can send SMS or MMS or e-mail and change your message settings. You can access your voicemail from this menu and your data folders (pictures and ringtones). It is very easy to send a message as the phone almost tells you what to do. The only problem I have is that when I'm typing a message I always press the red cancel button and end up at the main screen. The phone doesn't save what you have written until after you send it and you can't store a message half way through typing. Very annoying on a friday night kick out time when I'm a little sozzled, as you can imagine!
The data folders contain anything multimedia on your phone. Any photos you take are stored in "My Pictures" where you can move them to another folder and change their name. Ring tones and voice recordings are stored in "My sounds". There are 5 user folders which you can rename and use to organise your photos into categories. There is also a Themes folder which contains the colour themes for your phone's display. The phone has good memory capabilities for storing multimedia and contacts, just not games.It says you can store 900 files but I currently have 134 files and this is taking up62% of the available storage. Therefore it depends on the size of the files you are storing. The storage is 4MB.
The organiser contains your business card which you can send to your contacts or via bluetooth and infrared. There is a syncroniser so you can transfer your phonebook and schedule to your PC. There is a currency converter, alarm clock, schedule, voice memo recorder and calculator. The organiser also contains your connectivity menu for Bluetooth and Infrared dial up. This is pretty hard to get the hang of so refer to the user guide for more info.The Bluetooth isn't the best as you cant use it to browse through folders on other people's phones.They also can't look through your files so you have to send them whatever they want and get them to send what you want to you.A little faffy but not too bad. Both Bluetooth and IRDA connect very fast and send data quickly.

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Camera
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The camera takes some very good photos for a little phone. In poor light the photos are grainy but what do you expect for a phone? There is a light on the phone which is not as good as a camera flash (does anyone expect it to be?) but it does help with the quality of the photo. You can also edit your photos to change the effects (Black and white, negative or sepia) and the size of your photos. You can also add frames to your photos. The user guide says that the camera is 132 x 176 pixels, what this means I don't know but it's something im sure you may want to know.

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Battery life
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If you follow the manufacturers instructions regarding the battery's first charge you will have no problems. My mum has the same phone and she didnt. She takes it off charge before it has finished, never lets it go flat and didnt give it a proper charge in the first place. 3months later she has to charge the phone once a day, supprised? No me niether. My lovely battery lasts me 3-4 days and I do alot of texting and play the games alot when I'm bored at work. I once left the games alone to see how long the battery would last. I couldn't not use my camera as normal (I did try to leave it alone, honest!) and I made a couple of short phone calls and texted as i normally do. It lasted 6days before it started saying "please plug me in"!!!

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Games and multimedia
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The games aren't too bad as long as you're not a major mobile games player. The phone doesn't support Java so if you want a phone for great games, look elsewhere. There is a fairly good range of games available. The phone stores a list of games available on your handset which you can update for free each month. Games costs vary as Orange provide special offers every so often. Generally the games cost £3.00. The quality of the game is ok for a mobile phone but I have seen better. Orange send you SMS's offering you new games but sometimes these games aren't available on your handset
The sound recorder is located in the Settings- Alerts menu. It is fairly good quality but can sound a bit scratchy when you record music to use as a ringtone.It has loads of storage as far as ringtones and pictures go but you can only have two games and one of those is permanent (You cant delete it or swap it for another).

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Value for money
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It cost daddy darling £190 new on Orange but you can now buy it for about £120 new. if you shop around (for example on ebay or amazon) you can get it cheaper.Right now i saw it on amazon for £60 which is an absolute bargain. Obviously if you get it on a contract you can get it for free. The network isnt the cheapest for calls on pay as you go but customer services have been faultless for me and there are offers and incentives that you can subscribe to.

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Overall summary
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The afore mentioned messages getting deleted halfyway through typing and premature aging of the cover are the only major problems I have had with the phone. The only other problem I have had is that the signal can be quite poor. Sometimes if I have low signal it wont let people ring me which is a bit of a pain. But at least Orange text you when people have tried to ring you and not got through. It has never caused me any problems and I found it very easy to use. Ive dropped it plenty of times and it has never froze or anything like that. hense the strong rating on the robustness bit.

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Something to think about
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At the moment there are better (expensive) things on the market.... but think of this. Christmas or birthdays coming up and all you hear is "muuuuuummmmm" or "daaaaaaddddd" or my personal favourite "antie reeeesssooowwww"...
It's going on Amazon for 60 quid. It looks good, they can take photos, they can record their own ring tunes, they can show off to their mates with a slick phone that didn't cost you £300!!! And that's all i have to say, I had alot to say didn't I!!!
Oh must mention, i have posted this review on other sites under the same username that i have here so don't think ive copied it off someone else!

Summary: Overall a very easy to use phone with all the features you want on a mobile phone.If your a major mo

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