The easy acces phone (Sony CMD-J5)

Member Name: theunknown

Product:	Sony CMD-J5
Date:	19/08/01 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Jog dial, record your own ringers, eas acces

Disadvantages: Vibration mode is weak

Some say I’m a bit sad owing four phones in under a year, but I think I just like to be original. My phone before I purchased the Sony cmd-j, was a Nokia 3210 a great phone with lots of good features, but nearly everyone of my friends also had one, so while on the prowl for a new mobile I came across two phones I liked the one I’m talking about and the Nokia 3310/30, then I relealised that if I got the new Nokia I would find myself in the same position in three or four months. So I began to look into the Sony a little more because I didn't want it being rubbish.

After weeks of shop crawling and dooyoo reading I finally came to the conclusion this was the phone for me.

Looks:
It's sleek slim design, if not a bit tall, is superb with the metallic sliver with a blue frame along the screen; there is no need to spend another twenty pound on a new cover. It looks a bit tall and has not the most complimenting aerial, but how light the phone actually is amazing you can't even feel it in your pocket (but if someone was to put their hand in your pocket you would also not feel it)!!

Ringer tones:
One of Nokia's main features is to allow you to customise your ring tones with a composers or get them sent to you, but Sony have gone one better and allow you to record your own ring tones and alert sounds. This is my favourite feature of the phone and why I mainly bought it, you can record a ten second snippet of whatever you like, this allows you to do what ever you want (in ten seconds) you can record the chorus to your favourite tune, your mates can fart down the phone or record a porn video, like I said whatever you like. As for alert sounds these are only two second snippets (you can also save five of these), but when these are recorded you can set them to go off when you receive a text message, as your alarm clock or even for when you turn your phone on and off, excellent.

The jog dial:
The jog dial is
another new feature for a phone, a bit like the one on the Nokia; it is a small wheel at the side on the left hand side of the phone. When moved up or down, in normal mode, it brings you to your phonebook for easy access to call someone. When pushed in you will be brought to your main menu with all the usual messages, wap, settings and so on, move the wheel up and down to change option and when on your desired one just click again, easy as pie. This feature is great when on the move and allows easy one hand control of the phone.

Just below the jog dial is a small button, when slid down it either locks or unlocks the phone (depending on what mode you have it on before). If the button is slid up it will bring you to a menu with for pictures, which symbolise what type of ringer you have on: silent, vibrate (which is very poor), normal ringer and ring once. This allows easy access to change your phone to silent if you are entering a meeting or classroom.

Phonebook:
This is a strange mode, you will either love it or loath it, in the phonebook you each person entered has space for three numbers, which can give a symbol, either mobile, home, office or fax, which means you don't have eight numbers with different variations of the name Chris. You can also put each person in your book into a group, like boyfriend, girlfriend, drinking, football and so on, and then assign that group a ringer, so you know who is phoning you! You can also give each person two pictures and two notes about them, so if you meet someone and you think you are going to forget who they are you can jot something down about them, nice!

Other features:
Wap - haven't tried it yet!
Games - four games, not very stimulating but ok never the less, if you find out how to play them!
It also has a scheduler, clock and date and a calculator, all fairly good.

This phone is excellent, and at £100 on BT it’s fairly cheap. With loads of features to im
press your mates and more original than a Nokia it is a must have!

Summary: