Is that a cow in your bag? (Sagem Myx-2)

Member Name: sirg0508

Product:	Sagem Myx-2
Date:	25/01/05 (834 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazingly low price, coloured screen

Disadvantages: Where is a full stop? , Buttons a little hard to press with big hands

At Last!! My mum has got rid of her horrible Alcatel mobile phone and bought a real phone!! She has had her yucky phone for almost 2 years now and after it cutting out when she tries to send a message, not being able to get a signal, and just generally being the most annoying phone on earth she went to Galashiels and spent a whole 30GBP on a Sagem MY X-2!

To be honest, I am a little jealous! My Nokia 3410 has been my faithful servant but even this phone has a coloured screen and is actually a few centimetres smaller as well as being much lighter than mine!! - You should see the battery on this thing!

So, why did mum take so long in making her new purchase? Well, she didn't want a contract phone - they are just a waste of money if you never use your phone except for emergency calls and messages, and she wanted a flip phone but they cost around 100GBP which she really wasn't willing to pay. I'm not sure what possessed her to buy this specific one but she did and i'm hoping she will find it hard to use so I can have it and she can have my Nokia!! Mum also wanted a phone she would be able to put her current SIM card into which meant she was only able to buy a T-Mobile phone and not have to worry about getting the SIM card to be accepted, she also knew she would be able to get a signal which is important as not many networks will work in my town.

When you buy this phone, it comes in quite a jazzy little square box which holds the phone, battery, SIM and E-Top up cards, charger and the most important thing - the instruction manual which is in English!

While mum went off to do the shopping, I was in charge of setting up the phone - all that really means is getting it to charge for 4 hours before you can do anything! One major drawback I see of this phone is there is no evidence that this phone is charging - when the phone is on or off. She charged it for more than 4 hours but it still only said that the battery was 2 of the bars full (it has 4 bars). It does say in the instuctions that the battery will reach optimum capacity after a few charges.

Because mum was just putting her old SIM card into the phone, there was no need for her to register it which is a big advantage as when you get the phone, you don't get any free credit like you used to in the old days!

Ok, so you now have a fully charged phone... now what?

Well, when you put the phone on you are instantly hit by graphics - the screen is actually very clear and colourful which makes a difference from my Nokia! Just press the up and down buttons to scroll through the menu!

Features of this phone:

*Messages (see creating messages below)

*WAP - this seems very confusing to me - especially trying to type in a URL! I can never find a '.'!

*Picture Puzzle - this is the only game on the phone.

*Sounds - here you will find the ring tones - they are quite jazzy although people might think you have a cat, dog, frog or even a cow in your handbag!! One big mistake they have made is putting Kylie's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' in there! EWW!!! The tracks do sound as though they have just been recorded through a microphone (except for the tunes) so Kylie's is very real and she's even singing.

*Backgrounds - Here you can choose to have a different coloured background to the phone (the default is turquoise and looks to be the best out of the selection). When you put the phone on, there is also a background wallpaper - there are quite a few to choose from - flowers, eyes, baby, trees, butterflies.... I personally like 'Eye_2' the best - it looks most realistic. - the baby is just scary!

*Accessories - Calculator, Converter, Alarm, Timer, Car Kit, Data. These are pretty general and mostly speak for themselves... they are very easy to use.

*Services - this is just services that are offered by the network - e.g. T-Mobile has theirs called 'Interactive' - here you can find Info services, Text chat, fun and games, voice services - most of these cost around 25p per message (I have them all on my Nokia).

Phone book - This phone actually has a pretty decent amount of space - 250 numbers!


Creating messages - this phone has (like many others) the horrible T9 dictionary which 'helps' you to create messages quickly by partly typing a word and the rest will show up - in my experience, this has never happened! There are only 159 character spaces which means you are creating 1 message and will have to send that one before you can continue into a second message - Unlike Nokia where you have space for 3 messages. You can actually change the text size, alignment and style on this phone - what's wrong with just normal?! You can insert animations, pictures and melodies.... What is good is you can save messages to your SIM card, or the phone itself - according to my SIM card (they differ)... the phone will hold 100 messages and the SIM card will hold 10.

So, which would I have if I had to choose between my Nokia 3410 and the Sagem MY X-2.... There are some added advantages for the Sagem - coloured screen, more message spaces, better tones but this phone also has its disadvantages - it is harder to use - especially if you have large fingers - I find it pretty hard to use and I only have small hands!! Will my mum find it easier to use compared to her Alcatel? Well, when she gets the characters sorted out with a couple of practices, it should be a lot easier for her - no doubt i'll have to show her. This phone is also just the size of my palm!! As I mentioned above - you really have to see the size of this battery - it is thicker than a credit card but less than half the size!! There is a vibrating alert on this phone and luckily it doesn't go mad!

The covers are very easy to remove on this phone (could become a problem in time?) but we have already noticed scratches on the base - happened before purchase but could happen with the rest if left on a rough surface. I don't know if you can buy replacement covers but the back needs to be removed if you are replacing the battery or taking out the SIM card.

So if you are willing to part with 30GBP this is certainly a great purchase!!

UPDATE:

We actually discovered there was a fault with this phone as it wouldn't charge so mum took it back and got a replacement. She just got exactly the same phone again but the HiFi tone is no longer Kylie! It's some other strange tune... I just made the ring tone into the cow! hehe!

We have also noticed that if you don't have a signal it will still show you have one but it has the letter R above the bars whereas it shows Y when you do have a siganl - how strange!

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