Lobster is off the menu! (Virgin Lobster 544)

Member Name: ButterBear

Product:	Virgin Lobster 544
Date:	02/11/07 (495 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good features

Disadvantages: 2 handsets owned, 2 handsets broke down!

I'm a bit behind the times whan it comes to technology and such like, it wasn't all that long ago that I was using a Nokia 3330, but with 2 kids and a family home to look after I never have the money to do such things as update mobile phones. I recieved the Lobster 544 as a Christmas present from my parents this year and it was greatfully recieved. Lobster wasn't a brand I had really heard of but the phone looked good and had some great features, it was also on the Virgin pay as you go tariff that I had used for some time.

The Lobster 544-
The Lobster 544 is a clamshell style phone available in silver tones or black, it's a good size fitting nicely into the palm of my hand and is very lightweight. The case has a plastic feel to it, all bar a few metallic embellisments making it comfortable to hold.

It has a wide range of polyphonic ringtones, as well as the ability to purchase more tones, making it easy to personalise the phone to your liking. You can select different tones for incoming calls, texts etc and there is a tone for all tastes from techno to classic as well as standard "ring ring" style tones.

It has an inbuilt MP3 player which has a button to operate both inside the phone and outside. The MP3 tracks can be played at the same time as using the phone for other purposes such as texting. The phone comes with a USB cable allowing you to plug it into your computer so you can download the MP3 tracks. Volume can be controlled by a button on the side of the phone which you simply rock up or down depending on the level you want.

The phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera which can take both still and moving pictures, these can be saved onto the phones 0.5 mb internal memory or onto the 64mb microSD card that comes supplied with the phone(which slots tidily into a concealed section in the side of the phone) There is a light which obviously allows you to take pictures in darker surroundings as well as the ability to enhance the pictures with frames and borders, which include love hearts, film and Christmas themes. As well as recording/taking pictures you are also able to take sound recordings which are saved the same way.

The 3.7v Li-ion battery is released by a small catch on the back of the phone and is integrated with the back of the phone meaning there's no fiddling with seperate batteries and casing. The phone comes with a standard charger as well as an in car charger, both plug into the bottom of the phone.

The small outer screen can display date and time or even a photo or screen saver of your choice while the main screen can show a combination of both picture as well as date/time information, naturally on this screen you view all the phones menu options, watch back moving video, take pictures and browse the web.

While the phone is not Bluetooth compatable it does come with it's own handsfree kit for safer use if travelling. The phone comes with a few in built games and more games can be purchased by launching the phones browser and connecting to the Virgin center where you can read news and celebrity gossip, check out the latest bands, buy new ringtones and of course games.

Downloads (including tones, games etc) cost from 25p to £4.50 and text bites and alerts cost from 3-5p each. Accessing Wap Chat is 0.3p per KB and other sites is 0.5p per KB, with a flat rate on Pay As You Go of 30p per day.

A few more specs-
Size- (W x H x D) 49 x 88 x 22 mm
Weight- 80 g
Main screen -(W x H) 29 x 36 mm
Colour depth- 18 bits (262,144 colours)
External screen- (W x H) 19 x 19 mm
Battery type- Li-ion
Talk time- 150 min
Standby time- 100 hours
GSM frequencies- 900, 1800
Vibrating alert
Calendar
Alarm clock
Answer phone service
Call re-direct
Caller disply
Headphone socket 2.5mm
Short Messaging Service (SMS)
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
Internet browser
WAP protocol supported 2.0
Java

There are also a lot of accessories available from in car holders and chargers to novelty stands, cases, memory cards and fashion accessories like phone charms(mobilefun.co.uk has the best selection I've seen)

My Experience-
The first few months with my 544 went without I complaint, I happily made calls, texts, played games, took pictures and video of my kids playing with no problems. I found the phone easy to use, very clear and the menus were simple to navigate. Texting was simple with the ability to use auto text or, in my case, turn the auto text off, you could also type up to 3 texts worth in one go rather than having to send 3 seperate messages. Calls to were simple to make although the phone seems to lack a loudspeaker option. Battery life was always good and I would only have to charge the phone once a week, rarely finding myself with low or zero power.

The camera I did find a little slow and, being 1.3megapixels, didn't take the clearest of shots but I didn't expect great photo's from it anyway, after all it is only a mobile and I usually carry my digital camera around anyway. It was still nice to be able to take the photos or film footage and store it onto the miniSD card, this meant I could transfer it onto my computer much easier than other similar phones I had seen which only had internal storage. You could also have other miniSD's and use them within the phone, meaning if you filled the space on one disc you could simply put in a different card until you had a chance to take all the info off of the previous card.

I didn't often use the MP3 feature as I spend most of my time at home with the kids so it is just as easy to use my PC or stereo to play music. The sound however was clear and it was an easy feature to operate. The games was something else that I used quite rarely, again partly because I am busy with the kids etc but also because I have a well stocked games cabinate with both pc and PS2 games, the games were quite interesting and good for a little fun if you were bored in a waiting room but they hardly compare to the advanced games of PCs and PS2s.

The keypad on the phone is quite small and the buttons are close together. I found this quite tricky as I like to keep my nails quite long and I was always pressing 2 buttons at once, the same effect is likely to be felt by those with chubbier hands. The buttons were also quite flimsy in feel and some would often stick. I had no problems with the outer buttons as they were made more substantial to stand up to the forces they would come up against in peoples bags and pockets.

The charger and it's slot were slightly inconvenient in that they had an unusual design and no other style charger could plug into the phone, this was a huge problem when my charger went missing as I could not recharge my mobiles battery and would again proove a problem if you went on holiday or away without your phone charger.

My phone was on Pay As You Go, which is bar far my preffered method as I wont go running up ridiculous bills on calls and web use. The Virgin tariff always seemed reasonable with calls to other virgin users costing from 5p per minute and texts only costing 3p, calls to other lines were again 5-15p per minute and 10p per text.

The phone does look good and feels good too, it's nice and small which is perfect for my slender hands but it is also light making it comfortable to use and carry. I had the silver tone variety which looked nice and modern, this would soon become a problem though with my 2nd 544(yes 2nd, I'll explain in a moment) as it quickly became scratched with the front screen all blurred and then it simply looked horrible.

So why did I have 2? well after a few months the top section of buttons seized, this included the menu controls, dial button as well as the power button. I couldn't make calls, texts...........I couldn't use the phone at all and the moment the battery ran down I couldn't even turn the phone on anymore. So we called Virgin who were only too happy to replace the handset for me, they sent a courrier to collect the handset so we didn't even have to pay postage. We accidently sent back the SD card which we were meant to keep but Virgin even sent that back for me so I didn't lose the pictures I had taken. Virgin themselves were really good over the whole thing and I was delighted to recieve a brand new, shiny handset.

As I mentioned before the 2nd handset quickly became scratched which looked horrible and the metallic detail surrounding the front screen started to lift away from the phone, it started to collect fibres and gunk and just seemed thoroughly unpleasant but the phone still worked so I didn't want to have to send it back again. A few more months passed and the 2nd handset started having problems, the images on the screen often wouldn't display properly and finally it stopped working altogether. It will not switch on at all and does not even recognise when it's charger is plugged in, so it will be back to Virgin again, this time however I will be requesting a refund as we were told by their own repair man that the 544 was renowned as a bad phone, one that kept breaking down, and after experiencing this for myself with 2 different handsets I can definitely agree with the man.


The phone is available from Virgin Mobile suppliers in the region of £70 however it is increasingly difficult to get hold of due to it's falling reputation and I personally wouldn't recommend anyone buy it as it can be so unreliable, spend your money more wisely. I'm afraid it's only going to get 1 star from me because, despite it's features, it didn't work and I've had 2 different phones to proove that.

Summary: Best avoided!

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