My Favourite Thing: ... Two birds with one op! (Sony CMD-J70)

Member Name: idodoyou

Product:	Sony CMD-J70
Date:	26/07/02 (2722 review reads)
Rating:

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Since none of my favourite things [ok, so two] are deemed 'unfavouritable' with the powers that be down at Dooyoo HQ, it's time for idodoyou to kill two birds with one stone, or should I say op.

Firstly, Jill .... this is for you. And all my best wishes for you and yours.

Secondly. In order to instil some hope into the guide of this category and to try and 'bump' up his opinion of the opinions within his category ... Paul, this is for you too.

March 2002 saw me become the proud new 'mummy' of a tinsy winsy teeny tiny little thing and there were smiles all round.
Alas, as with most new things that finds its way into my eager grasp, my relationship with the a tinsy winsy teeny tiny little thing was not meant to last, and so, a couple of weeks ago, the little cute guy, a Samsung A300e, went up for adoption on eBay [netted me a tidy sum] and I was 'toyless' until a trip into the city reunited me with joy.

Y'see, I'll admit it, I'm a sad case. I love gadgets. I love small and sparkly things, that make noises and lets me makes noises. I like mobile phones.

And when, with a fist full of readies, a skip in my walk and a twinkle in my eye, you just know there's one place I'm headed. In this case, it was the Orange shop in the Castle Mall, Norwich.

I'd done the usual. Had a look around a few sites at the specs. Had a perusal through Dooyoo. And had pretty much made up my mind that I wasn't going to be coming home phoneless.
I was gonna get me one of them there Sony phones!!

Weighing in, although, hardly weighing anything at all, the Sony J70 is a mere 92g. Why, you hardly know you've got it. Although, it maybe light, but compared to some, it's not particularly small for its weight, with measurements of 113 x 44.4 x 21.5 mm.
I'll admit, I usually plump for the 'smallest' in the shop [unless we are talking cream cakes?]
and so I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that although there's a small increase in size for me and my phone, size really isn't important [you listening guys?]

The J70 is a classy looking piece of kit. A brushed silver fascia holds the keys while the rim around the ample and clear screen is shiny.

The main reason I was attracted to this phone was its staying power. There's nothing worse than getting cut off at that crucial moment is there? Under optimum conditions the battery, a standard Li-ion, offers talk time up to 3.5 hours, while the stand by time is a whopping 8 [that's right 8] days. Since I've had this phone [2 weeks] it's been on charge twice. The battery does not lyeth!

If I'm to be honest, the other reason that this phone happened to appear on the idodoyou list of 'must haves' was the ring tone ability. Instead of the basic 'plinkity plunkity, bleeperty bleep' ring tones that virtually every other phone emits at the most inoppurtune time, the J70 will make your ringing phone stand out from all the rest. Its polyphonic y'know! And sounding more like an Ice Cream van it has thrown my nephew into 'lolly wanting' rages on two occasions. Eek. I'll agree, maybe sounding like a walking Walls van is not the cool [ice cream .... Cool .... Get it ;-)] thing to do .... But I'm loving it!

If you, and I say if knowing that you all would, want to change your ring tone, you can either choose one of the 20 that it comes with, or record your own! Oh yes, there's no need to have any ring tone at all. If you so wish, record something off the TV, off your stereo or just shout into the thing. You have a whopping 10 seconds to record, or shout your stuff, so there should be more than enough time to yell the words 'Oi, ya phones ringing sexy'!!

You've all been on the bus, or the train when a message comes through right? As soon as the high p
itched screech of 'doo doo. doo doo' pierces the air, watch arms frantically scrabble for phones as minds are racing, 'I've got a message, I've got a message'. You've been there right? I can see the heads nodding ... There's no frantic scrabbling with the J70. There is a whopping 16 choices to choose from, all sounding along the lines of the Walls van. When that message comes through, it's all yours ....

While in the Sounds menu, you can change, or switch off all manner of alerts for all manner of options. Alarm, when you turn on and when you turn off. Of course, with the ring tone and record your own thing, it applies here as well, and so 'turning on your phone could be greeted with 'Hello Sexy', or something equally as complimenting.

The biggest difference between the J70 and other phones on the market today is the revolutionary 'Jog Dial Menu'. Instead of the basic 'key pressing menu' that are really, quite boring [when you've 'jogged' for a while] the J70 comes equipped with a wheel built in/on the right hand side. With one click it takes you into the menu and with a slight flick of the finger [or thumb, depending on how you hold it!] the menu options are shown on the screen. The graphics are really quite nifty, although at 96 x 92 pixels, we are hardly talking real quality, but I could spend all day 'flicking' the wheel and watching the menu change [as I said .... Sad case!]

The main menu that the J70 offers can pretty much be found on several of the phones out there today. However, there are one or two little added extras that all go to make this phone a cut above the rest. The phone book speaks for itself. As well as your 90 space SIM card [depending on SIM card of course] there is a chance for a whopping 500 entries on the phones memory. If you happen to have made use of all those 500 spaces you're bound to want to organise them aren't y
ou? Ok, well stick them into 'caller groups'. Not a new concept I grant you, but, as well as adding them to caller groups, you can add pieces of information about your contacts in the form of a PhoneBook Note!! Highlight a number, and lo and behold, it could open a whole wealth of information about the owner of that number .... Birthday, email address, mobile number etc, etc.

All throughout the menu, instructions on how to add, edit, view or basically delete information is provided on screen, and setting up any option on the phone is child's play [well, I can do it!]

Sending text messages is simple. Of course, if you want to 'pep' your messages up a bit, it's easy to do with 'picture messaging' and 'attaching tunes' . Unfortunately, as easy as it is, it probably pointless unless your mates have a Sony phone too because at present the tune and picture attaching is only compatible with other Sony's. Tsk. As with most other phones on the market, the bog standard text options apply such as 'predictive input'[I hate that thing ... Can I get the hang of it .... Nope!] and 'templates'[always send ther same message? Don't bother to keep typing it out. Save it and send it again and again]

One of the biggest 'playability' options that this phone offers is the WAP function. With the necessary information typed in, you can be WAPPING around the web in no time. This is where the big screen is a real bonus.

Not only is WAP a way of communicating but if you so desire, you can e-mail [via your own email account] or fax.
The email is easy to set up, and to save money and time, you can write your mails 'off line' and send later. You can also receive e-mails too but they can not be more than 2000 characters long and of course, you can not download attachments either.

The J70 comes with several other little offerings that all go to make this phone a must h
ave for the 'busy people' [or the ones like me who like to 'play'] of the world. There's a Scheduler that will remind you of the stuff that you've scheduled. Little icons and editing facility makes this options great fun, and there's really no need to ever miss a Birthday ever again [unless you didn't schedule it in the first place? [boy are you in trouble!]

The clock is as all other clocks are. It tells the time. But this one is better. Its a world clock. If you want it shown on screen at all times, you can. If you want the date shown you can. If you are in Tenerife and you want to know the time there and here, you can. It's nifty. It's cool.

The calculator is a ... calculator. It answers your sums without hesitation. Of course, if you're expecting any thing more than the basic +-x and dividing options ? you'll be disappointed. We're not talking scientific y'know!

On 'flicking' in to the games menu, it felt weird not to be greeted with Snake, the old Nokia firm favourite, but, the 4 that are on offer all offer oodles of fun and lashings of time wasting. Bananas ~ PicPuz~ MindBlaster and Sand Art. And all are simple to play.

Of course, and it's nothing new, but you have the usual Call History function. Who'd ya ring? Who rang you? How long did they talk to you? How long did you talk to them? All simple stuff, but to the individual useful and a much used option.

Under the Settings menu heading, you can set your language, any wallpaper you might want [a relatively new concept] whether you want the back light on or off, the contrast of your screen, and head towards the Memory sub heading, and you can find out how many numbers you've got stored and where. Call setting is your basic 'any key answer', 'redial', call timers',

I'll be honest, I've been a Nokia girl for many a year now, but it's only recently
I fell off the rails. Quality was always the main reason I'd have one of their offerings poking out of my top pocket, and I'll admit, finding far less superior quality in other branded phones was always a fear of mine. However, my fear has been wasted on this occasion. There seems to be no lack of quality at all. I've read reviews on this phone where people have complained that this phone is quiet and that they have missed calls, but as I haven't and have heard all my calls, [even in HMV] I can only assume that they are either deaf or hide their phones in their bags under towels! Failing that, I'm secretly Superwoman and I have supersonic hearing but that?s very doubtful!!

I thought that there might be a dip in reception since there's no aerial [nothing to poke the sticky out bits on a girls anatomy, thank god!] and it's not a Nokia [a yardstone for all future phones I'm afraid] but nope. I speak, I'm heard. They speak, I hear them.

Of course, the quality of reception is all down to the network provider [I'm with Orange] but even so, with only one of the four bars that are usually shown to show coverage, the quality of call did not deteriorate at all.

In order to paint an honest and true picture of the Sony J70 it's only fair that I mention the one little tinsy winsy thing that p****s e off with this phone. But as I say, it's only small, but annoying all the same. When entering numbers into the phone book, for some reason, it enters them twice. You follow the instructions as to where you want to put your contact [SIM or phone memory] and then, it ignores your instructions and it puts the contact in both thus creating two entries instead of the one!!

Really nothing to get het up about, and no doubt, further fiddling will bring a stop to this double creating thing but until that time arrives .... Arghhhhh!!

All in all, I'd recommend this phone. It's cheap, [unde
r £100] or free on certain pay monthly tariffs, it sounds great, and it looks good. It lets you ring people. And it lets people ring you. It does what it says on the box and does what a phone is supposed to. I mean, it is just a phone, but at the moment, and call me shallow but .... it's my favourite thing!

"Jill Murphy asked me to write about one of my favourite things to help her celebrate her fourth anniversary of cancer-free living and to remind ourselves of all the nice things in the world. It takes more muscles to make a frown than a smile you know. If you'd like to join in, whether you've only just joined dooyoo, or you've been here ages, you're more than welcome. Just write about one of YOUR favourite things, make your title "A Favourite Thing: [your choice]" and include this paragraph at the foot of your opinion. And post before Friday, 9th August."

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