Background

The main reason for purchasing this phone was because I had recently started my vertical project at university which involved contacting lots of different organisations and younger students via phone calls in order to collect data for disability action. I had previously used a little flip up phone on pay as you go but seeing as my student accommodation didn't have a land line this was just not going to cut it, I had to get a contract phone otherwise I would be spending a small fortune just trying to complete an essential module of my undergraduate degree. This was my first touch screen mobile phone.


Packaging

The phone came in a little cardboard box with its picture on it; each individual component also came in a separate little plastic transparent bag. The package included the phone itself, headphones, battery, charger, instruction booklet, a connector for the computer and a sim card. I think I got a pretty good deal through O2 though £15 a month for 200mins and unlimited texts, no internet though I have a laptop for that and didn't believing in paying extra for it or sacrificing for any of the other utilities so unfortunately I cannot tell you about how good this phone is at web surfing. This was available for two years, I will need to renew soon.


How it operates

The phone has three main buttons that aren't related to the touch screen which are back, on/off and the universal little phone signature that you use to dial. Other buttons include the lock, take a photo and a simple up and down which works with the sound levels and moving the screen up and down when reading texts or scanning your phone book. Unlike other phones and mp3 players it just has one slot which works with the charger, computer adaptor and headphones which saves a bit of hassle.
The first screen has the buttons for your keypad, phone book and main menu.

The main menu then leeds to the following options: call log, phonebook, music, browser, messages, my files, organiser, camera, communities, applications, alarms and settings. These are pretty self-explanatory options featured in most phones and are pretty easy and obvious to figure out and navigate.

If you clickthe little arrow in the top right hand corner which takes you to your internet links such as myspace, facebook and youtube. I have never used these though.


Camera

The camera isn't amazing but it does the job in an emergency should you see someone dressed up as David Bowie or you win a competition un-expectantly. (I attend a lot of geeky science fiction and fantasy conventions in Ireland).


Add-ons

When I initially got this phone I also got an extra chip for memory so that I could store my music on it and listen to it on the go, I had an amazing play list, the sound quality was great and it didn't bring down the battery power as much as I thought. However it was stolen from me when I was on the university campus one day and I was absolutely gutted. Although insurance replaced the phone, I could never replace the awesome playlist.


Durability

I have dropped this phone lots and it's still in one piece and working fine I think it's very reliable though and even when on for three days straight it doesn't run out of power. I find this extremely important when I need to use it for its alarm.


Games

There are a few games for free on this game including bubble popper which is quite entertaining and asphalt4. There are also some trial games and a tumbling dice which is convenient if you have a board game with pieces missing.

There is also an option to connect to the radio, a stop watch, timer, voice recorder and the ability to connect via blue tooth, so this phone has lots of great little features.