Le meilleur portable du monde? (Sagem MY X-6)

Member Name: tomshanks

Product:	Sagem MY X-6
Date:	13/05/04 (1082 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The best mobile phone camera this side of a video phone, Lots of other useful features to more than justify the price, Superb audio features (polyphonic ringtones, speakerphone, etc.)

Disadvantages: Text input and messaging really sub-standard, Unofficial data cables do not work with the official software, The existence of the MYV-65, MYX-7 and MYV-75

There are times when, even if it seems rather stupid, the old clichés still hold fast. In my experience with the Sagem MYX-6, this was certainly the case. In around January 2003, about six months before I was due to get an upgrade on my Orange contract, I suddenly discovered the existence of the Sagem MYX-5, at that time the brand new model from the little-known French manufacturer. It was precisely what I wanted. It looked very good, it had everything that I thought was necessary at the time in a phone (changeable covers, polyphonic ringtones, GPRS, a colour screen and a reasonable size, little bigger than the Nokia 8310), and was free on a contract and for an upgrade. I could not rush out and get it at the time, since I had to keep my current phone to avoid paying a massive fee, so I waited until around June, when I was only a month away. I was told that the MYX-5 was no longer available, probably due to unpopularity at Orange, although it did turn into a success story at T-Mobile. On my advice, my sister bought an MYX-5 about a year ago, and ever since then has never stopped telling me how much she hates it. My housemate was even more delighted when a gaming version of the MYX-5 appeared, called the MYG-5, which even included Java games, and rather a strange design, which made it look like a Gameboy. However, this was only offered on Pay As You Go by the time that June came, which meant that I could not have it. What was being offered on a contract, however, was somewhat different.

I cannot remember exactly how I first heard about the Sagem MYX-6, but after I saw it in the ?Coming Soon? section of the Orange website, I knew that I had to have it. Initially released at 50 
1;BP to upgrade to, I actually paid 30 GBP for it, and managed to sell my old Siemens C45 for the same price, so it was effectively free. I actually knew someone who had one before I managed to get mine, but she was on Vodafone, who had decided to release their version before Orange, so it was slightly different. Unfortunately, I preferred the silver Vodafone cover to the standard Orange dark blue one, but it could not be helped. The phone was tempting enough without having to worry about what colour the standard covers were. Soon, it was delivered to my house, and I had a chance to examine it. To my surprise, the box contained software for the handset, but no data cable, and I was forced to purchase one separately. However, this did not matter, as I really was one of the first people in the country to own the MYX-6, something which will probably never be repeated. Initially, I was amazed that the phone had such a massive screen for something which had very similar dimensions to my Siemens C45, and what a list of features! For Sagem, a company who had previously furnished me with the worst phone I have ever used, this was an absolute revelation. The screen was bright, and bigger than the one used on my other phone at the time, a Trium Eclipse, and the phone was much smaller. It had ALL the features of the Eclipse and a whole lot more. Even now, I struggle to use all of the MYX-6?s bits and pieces, and the phone I intend to upgrade to in two months? time is actually only a slight improvement on the MYX-6 platform, which shows just how right Sagem got it the first time. There was only one problem, which was actually apparent before I even turned the phone on. I do not really like the design.

The MYX-5 was, at the time that I s
aw it, probably the nicest-looking mobile phone I had ever seen. Hence the reason why I urged my sister to get one. The MYX-6, however, is a different matter. It looks all right in all silver, but the dark blue/black with the silver surround on the screen and keypad does make it look far too flashy. I am a great fan of understated phones, like the Siemens C60 and the Mitsubishi M320, both of which do not shout about their looks, but the MYX-6 seemed to give off all the wrong signals. It is very much a ?pub phone?, and certainly most of the people I met at the time when it was new had never seen anything quite like it. Things do improve when it is turned on, however.

Without knowing it, I realised that I had actually bought one of the best camera phones on the market. At the time it was the cheapest phone with a built-in camera around, but this does not adequately explain quite how it can have such a good quality camera in it. Granted, the pictures are never going to be magazine quality, but for something which does all sorts of other things as well, the photographs that the MYX-6 takes can be considered as rather something in comparison with similar phones, such as the Sony Ericsson T610 and the Siemens MC60, both of which only have the lesser quality CIF cameras. Amazingly, the MYX-6 takes pictures of full VGA (640x480) quality, which is comparable to the Sony Ericsson P900, a phone costing four times as much. I have, however, found that the just over 2MB worth of storage that there is for photographs and ringtones really does not seem to be enough if you, like me, want to be able to take out any photograph that you have taken at a moment?s notice. It would probably store about 50 photographs on average if the phone memory was not being used for anything else
as well, but with something which has as many features as this, this is never going to be the case. I can, however, confirm that the quality of the pictures is really rather good when put on a computer screen, although I had to buy a data cable and software in order to perform this procedure. There are something like five different shutter sounds for the camera, but the standard one seems to suit me fine. There is apparently also even a self-timer function for the camera, but I have not ever used this. The trouble with it would be that there is no flashing light to warn when a picture is being taken, just the shutter sound, so by the time that anyone realised that the picture was being taken, it would be too late. Maybe this is an advantage for some, but I have not ever felt the need to be quite so rude!

If one should so feel inclined, there is also rather a decent built-in picture editor, which gives effects such as black and white, speech bubbles and borders to pictures. This can be a great trick amongst friends, but it is probably not a good idea to show strangers in the street the incredible effects that can be achieved if a photograph is taken of them, and then solarized and a speech bubble with them making an amusing caption is added! In addition to this, there is also full support for MMS (Multi-Media Messaging), which means that your photographs can be sent with sound and text, as well as simply on their own, to anyone with an MMS compatible phone, which is quite a section of the population these days. In return, you will also be able to receive other people?s pictures taken on phones with CIF cameras, and then send them a text message back telling them how bad their picture quality is, although this is not recommended for obvious reasons. Photographs or other pictures, can also be added to the phonebook entries, so that a so-called ?photo phonebook
? can be produced, so when someone calls, and a picture of them is on the phone, it appears on the screen. This also holds good for making calls, especially with the excellent built-in loudspeaker, so you can see the picture of the person, and talk to them at the same time. It should be added, however, that the procedure for doing this is somewhat complicated if one has the number saved on the SIM card and one wants to add a photo entry, since this means copying the entry to the phone as well, but this is a minor problem for most. What is more serious is what happens when it comes to actually inputting text into those MMS messages which you suddenly need to send after getting this phone.

The MYX-6 has, almost without a shadow of a doubt, the smallest keypad I have ever seen on a phone. Most of the people I have seen with one of these have actually been female, and I can see a good reason for this. Not being the smallest of people in a horizontal direction, I find that my fingers are very often slightly bigger than recommended for things like mobile phone keypads. The MYX-6 is right at the very limit of what I can use, and although I have got used to it in the ten months I have had the phone, I should not really have had to. It is not all bad news, howver, since the new MYX-7, released earlier this year by Sagem, has a much better keypad. If the actual size of the keys is a problem with which I can live, if a little inconvenient, then the next problem of this phone has to be the response to keypad presses. Most phones these days (although the Mitsubishi M320 does appear to be an exception), particularly those with colour screens seem to have a lag between pressing a button and the phone actually responding to the keypress, and the MYX-6 is no exception. Admittedly, the phone has quicker software
than my old Ericsson T65, which really was a bit too slow to send messages on, but too often I think that it has crashed, when all that has happened in reality is that the phone is trying to catch up with information which I fed it some considerable time ago. This is particularly frustrating, as a lot of business people will want to use the considerable office tool capabilities of this phone, and to have the thing freeze in the middle of putting down a vital appointment is probably not the best of things to happen. That said, however, the MYX-6 does come with quite a useful set of office tools.

One of the things I have found most user-friendly has been the whole businessman?s section of the phone. Included, there is a currency convertor, calculator, countdown timer, alarm clock, a scratchpad and a calendar, which is more than I would ever need. The calculator in particular is wonderfully logically laid out, with each of the four different directions of the central D-pad standing for a different mathematical symbol. The currency convertor and calculator can also lead from one to the other with the same sum, so if you want to add up the cost of your shopping, and then convert it from Pounds Sterling to Euros, there is no need to worry about remembering the total in your head before switching back to the currency convertor. The calendar would be very useful if I actually had important meetings that I did not want to miss, but fortunately I do not, but it is good to know that it is there. The alarm is perfectly adequate, but strangely does not make the phone vibrate when it goes off. Maybe this is to stop the phone being damaged if it is being charged overnight and the alarm goes off with the charger still connected. The timer can also be used for cooking, amongst other things. The ringtone for both these events can also be changed, unlike on a Nokia
.

The MYX-6 has one of the most eclectic selections of ringtones ever seen on a handset. For a start, there are the irritating monophonic ones, such as the so-called ?Classic? ringtone, which sounds like a normal housephone ringing with shorter intervals between the beeps, and gets the attention not only of the user, but that of everyone for several miles around. Then, there are the ones which sound like melodies composed on a normal polyphonic composer, but these are very few. Lastly, there are the oddest things I think I have ever heard to come out of a phone. There is a Cat, a Dog, a Boathorn (something excellent to set as the alarm tone), a Rooster, a old-fashioned telephone and, strangest of all, the Jackson Five in some sort of WAV recording of one of their songs. Unfortunately, the MYX-6 does not support WAV files loaded off a computer as ringtones, but it will have whatever you have recorded in the sound recorder as a ringtone, so if you really want to have the original version of your favourite tune as your ringtone, just hold the phone up to a speaker and record it. This is a feature that I also have on my Siemens C55, and does provide for some entertainment, although the clips that can recorded are not that long, since it would take up too much space on the phone. My mother tried to record an alarm ringtone for me so that I would get up in the morning, but fortunately I found out that it is also possible to delete the ringtones that have been recorded, and this is just as well, since my mother is sometimes too much for me first thing! What she also appreciates, however, is being able to send her text messages. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat laborious process on the otherwise mostly wonderful MYX-6.

When I lived in France, text messaging was quite expensive. In com
parison with Germany, it was some 50% more. I soon worked out why this was. If the demand for text messaging is low, because the country?s own market phones have bad systems for sending them, then the price can be put up. Of course, this is not much of a reason, but it does take into account that every Sagem phone which has ever been before the MYX-6?s descendant, the MYV-65, has been fundamentally flawed for text messaging. The small buttons and the slow keypad responses are one thing, the actual system for sending messages is quite another. Although the editor allows one to be able to see pretty much the whole of the message one is sending, unless the zoom in function is enabled, there is no knowing how many messages one is going to have to pay for when the thing is finally sent. The only way to find this out is to press send, choose the recipient, and then find out how many messages the phone says that it is going to send. If it just says one, then there will be no extra charge, but if there is more than one, and there is not much credit left on your phone, then the only way to correct this is to go back to the recipient stage of the process, erase the number, and then go back to the text message editor and start to delete a few commas and unnecessary words. With any luck, this will then leave you under the limit, so you will not have to repeat the procedure a second time. There is no indication in the editor that one is heading over the limit and no character counter. Fortunately, this has also now been corrected in future Sagem models, but it is quite an oversight for a company that has been in the business as long as Sagem. One does, however, get accustomed to it. EMS, however, is quite a different matter. Quite apart from MMS, EMS is supported by the vast majority of phones (apart from Nokias), and on something like the MY
8;-6 the little pictures which can be sent and received are in colour, and the sounds which are played are polyphonic. I look forward to using this feature more when the standard text messaging is finally sorted out. All is not lost by this, however.

The MYX-6 has a decent array of standard backgrounds built into the phone (at least the Orange version does), including a water droplet, a desert and a parcel, strangely enough. All of these show off the wonderful 65,000 colour display, and different themes can also be chosen, although I would presume that the standard three can be added to if one had the time and inclination to find them on the Internet. The best by far of the three is called ?Acqua?, and has pictures of abstract reflections and the seashore on the background to the menus. I found the standard Orange theme rather overpowering and dark, and the ?Acqua Rosé? far too feminine, in a wonderful shade of pink. Not that this matters, given that most of the people with these phones are women, but it would be nice to have more than a choice of two for the other 50% of the population. The phone also has changeable covers, so those who are into pink Mickey Mouse spotted covers can have pink Mickey Mouse spotted covers. However, this also means that the phone creaks in use, and the French origins of manufacture are thus clear to see. Strangely, my housemate?s MYG-5 actually seems to be better built than my considerably more expensive phone, so I may have a better time with the new MYX-7. The actual components inside the phone, however, work extremely well.

The MYX-6 was Sagem?s first ever Tri-band phone. It was also one of their first with an internal aerial. However, the reception quality is nothing short of extraordinary. At one of my friend?s houses the Orange signal is app
alling, and many phones I have taken round there have refused to work at all inside the house. The Sagem, however, always seems to get a signal inside, albeit not a very strong one, which is really commendable, especially on a cold day when I do not fancy going into the garden to make a call or send a message. The battery life, however, is not so great. Although I have had standby times of more than a week from the phone, this has been when it has been left and only checked for messages once a day. Using it for calls and text messages, and playing with the camera can really eat up the battery, and there have been times when I have had to charge it every night because of this. That said, most digital cameras do not last too long, so I suppose that it is something to do with that. Call quality seems to be very good, and the phone has an excellent loudspeaker option whereby it can be left without being held and still make calls. If I can leave this phone on the passenger seat whilst I am driving and still be able to hold a decent conversation without raising my voice, then the speakerphone must be good, and it really is. It is also one of the simplest to activate, simply requiring an extra press of the green button during a call to toggle it on and off, unlike in a Nokia or a Siemens, where trawling through the menus is required. If there was one systematically good point about Sagem phones, this is it, but whether or not this is enough to make someone want to buy one is another issue.

As for fun and games, I have found the WAP function on the MYX-6 to be the best I have ever tried, due to the large screen and the genuine four-way navigation. Unfortunately, not many sites are displayed in colour, and it is expensive, but with GPRS it is not too much of a problem to find the information required. As for games, the two stan
dard ones have been on Sagem phones for many years, and will not divert attention for very long, but at least the phone supports downloadable games on the In-Fusion system, which means that they can be changed easily, although on my Orange model only two extra games can be stored at a time. Java will be available on the next model (MYX-7), so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

In terms of the menu system, the phone pales in comparison to Nokia, Siemens and Mitsubishi in that the degree of customisation is very limited. The right softkey will always go to the WAP homepage, and the left softkey will always lead to the camera in two presses. Left and right have no function in the standby menu, and down goes to the menu, which means that finding names is somewhat more laborious than normal, but the actual standard menu system is fine. The size of the phone has also come in for comment, but with all that it does, and the camera and the massive colour screen, I do not see how it could be much smaller, without the keys being even further reduced in size. The mat on the back of the phone, which must add to the weight, does prevent it from being scratched, however, which is more than can be said for the silver front.

Despite some really rather strange design flaws, I must say that the best phone I have ever owned has been a French one. It is testament to Sagem that all I want is more of the same, which is why I will be getting an MYX-7 to replace this one. However, a lot of the little niggles on this model which have now been corrected on the latter model should never have got it past the prototype stage. It does have that lovely camera, however!

Summary: