aatm
01-18-2007, 03:16 PM
So, I thought I'd try and write my very first review, and what better phone for me to write my first review on, than the Sanyo M1!
Some may love it, and some may hate it. My review isn't to sway one side to the other; it is simply to just give as accurate a review of the device from MY EXPERIENCE. Reading the temporary M1 discussion shows that some units are a little iffy, while others are rock solid.
I will also try to keep this review as M1 independent as possible. I'm coming from the 9000, but checking my sig shows that I, like many of us, have owned a vast array of devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
**1 GB of dedicated memory to photos, videos, music, and voice memos**
This is great. Most people don't need this much, and some people will use it if they have it. I had a 2 GB miniSD and I only used about 1.3 GB and a lot of that was stuff just to have. Right now, I'm up to about 870 MB with about 100+ songs, a couple TV shows, and about a 100 pictures and some video from the camcorder. Would've been near perfect with expandable memory, but I think it's great.
**40 MB of dedicated memory to downloads (ringers, screen savers, applications, games, themes)**
Yes, this seems to be separate from the 1 GB of memory. In the file manager, my memory shows as 876560 KB used/129520 KB free which equals 1006080 KB (1.06 GB). My content memory usage shows as 8074 KB used/32886 KB free which equals 40960 KB (40 MB).
**2.0 MP camera**
The pictures are simply amazing. IMO the very best from Sprint yet, better than the a800, a940, 535, and even the 9000 (which took great pictures as well). Auto focus is great and the shutter speed is quick. No blurry pictures, like the a940. Night pictures are absolutely great thanks to the bright flash, and daytime pictures are phenomenal. Since the lens is on the back of the phone, and there is no external antenna, I can almost get away with using it as a real camera without anyone noticing...maybe when I take the sticker off the battery...
Another thing worth noting is that when in using the camera/camcorder with the phone closed, you can zoom in and out with the fast forward/rewind buttons on external control buttons.
Lastly, the videos are recorded in 320x240 and are super smooth! I put a video of me solving a Rubik's cube on youtube, and you probably wouldn't be able to tell that it's from a cell phone. It looks that good.
**Media Player**
Obviously, one of THE BEST things about this phone is that you can listen to music while browsing the web, sending a text, basically maneuvering everywhere on the phone sans applications, games, and taking pictures/video. Something I've noticed is that if you do have the media player running, the side volume control will only control the media player volume, even if it is minimized. Therefore, you can not adjust your phone's ringer unless you go through the menu settings. Inconvenient, but makes sense.
**Stereo Speakers**
They sound great, albeit, not as loud as the Sanyo 9000's one speaker. Music sounds great coming through them, and I've noticed that the "Jazz" setting on the equalizer seems to have the all-around best sound. Don't put the volume at the very loudest it can get; there will be some distortion. The one or two right below it seem to work out just fine. Unfortunately, I haven't tested out the speakerphone so I can't say anything about it.
**Screens**
Both screens are great. Internal is a gorgeous QVGA with 262k colors, and the external is wonderful as well. I don't know the exact resolution on the external and I'm not going to pretend like I do. But it's nice as well. You can watch videos on the external screen which is great. Just make sure to set the display as "full screen (icons off)" on the internal display, so that the icons don't block everything up on the external display.
**Reception**
Like I said in one of my posts in a one of the M1 threads, there's an area by my apartment where, whenever I would drive through it, I would almost always drop the call. I've driven through that area twice a day for this whole week, and I haven't dropped a call yet. Very promising. I've had no reception problems anywhere, and I haven't dropped any calls yet.
**UI**
Lightning fast. This is what sets Sanyo apart from many of the other manufacturers. When I want to look at my contacts, I can do it without lag. If I want to navigate around the menu, I am able to do so with no lag at all. All other phones not made by Sanyo have always had some sort of lag, some not too bad, some really bad (motos).
**4 Way Navigation Buttons**
Programmable!!! Nostalgic feelings for Samsung and LG were blasted away with a very much needed design change from Sanyo. In the past, the buttons were preprogrammed, but now they are programmable. Wonderful. One thing I have noticed though is that sometimes when I'm trying to press UP, I end up pressing OK instead...*shrug*...whenever I'm trying to press DOWN...I press DOWN. So I don't know what my problem is. Hehe.
**Keys**
As the phone is facing you:
Left side (Bottom to top)
Volume - controls the media player when it's running, the ringer setting for the phone when media player is not running, activates the flashlight when the phone is closed.
Memo - It's nice that this is again used for either ready link OR taking memos, the default being the latter. Since I don't use ready link, it was nice not having to change it.
Right side (Bottom to top)
Camera - launches a menu with camera, camcorder, and voice recorder options. Also activates each one.
Speakerphone - wow. So I just found out about this. I should've played with the phone more. I thought that the phone was lacking its independent voice dialing feature. On the 9000 it was activated by pressing and holding the TALK button. Thankfully, I wrote this review so I could find it! When you press the speaker button, it activates it, and it works marvelously. No programming, and it called each contact I tried perfectly, on the first try.
As options you have:
call
dial number
find
international
phone status
------------
more
go to
And I can access the voice dialing feature from my bluetooth headset. Speaking of bluetooth...
**Bluetooth**
I haven't used it as extensively as others most likely have, but I've done a few things. I transferred my contacts from my 8400 over (very quick), paired it up to my computer via USB dongle, paired it up to my Plantronics 330 (which by the way matches my M1 nicely - both are black with long silver lines)
Pairing with my headset was easy and I haven't had any problems yet. First few times I used my headset, there was a little bit of static and breaking up, but lately, I haven't noticed it. Everyone I've talked to never noticed I was on a headset either, so that's good. Probably a good combo, the M1 and the Plantronics. When I had the a900/a940/Fusic, I went through an HS850, H700, and Jabra 250v. The best was the Jabra, but was just uncomfortable after a while, and there was a little bit of static still, which could be heard on both ends. Now with my M1 and Plantronics 330, I've had no pairing problems, very little static problems, and no one has heard any static on my end.
(Little plug for the plantronics. It's wonderful. It doesn't sit outside your ear like the H700/HS850, and it doesn't go inside of your ear, completely blocking out sound on that side of the ear like the Jabra and others that use ear gels. It's kind of half way. There's a portion of the earpiece that goes inside the ear, but doesn't plug up the entire area, so you can still hear clearly out of it.)
I love that you can also bluetooth your texts and your calendar events.
**Looks**
I like it. Many don't. Many think it looks like a duplo (the giant legos). I think it looks hella nice. It has no antenna, it's black with a nice silver lining, and it has blue backlights. It's also a lot smaller than pictures of it make it look. I don't have another camera with me, and I'm at work, but it's as tall (closed) as a credit card is wide, and it's .75 cm thinner than the credit card is tall. Not sure if that makes sense, so how about:
9 cm tall closed/15.5 cm open, 4.5 cm wide, and 2.2 cm thick.
**Build Quality**
I'm not sure what the problem is. I read that there are supposed to be marks showing up on the hinge...but I don't see any. Maybe I haven't opened and closed it enough yet. *shrug* And yes, it's probably not as "solid" as the 8400 or another phone, but it's definitely not "cheap plastic" as it's been put. I don't know if people are trying to use it as a hammer or to crack open walnuts, but I mean, it's not going to break in your hands or pocket.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
All in all, if I were to rate it on a 1-10 scale, I'd give it as close to a 10 as I could get, without giving it a full 10. Now that I know it has independent voice dialing (thank God cuz stupid voice tags which never work), I would probably still have liked the expandable memory. I'm the type who will use it if I have it, and I'd like to put more Tenisu no Oujisama episodes on my phone...or Hana Yori Dango. Hehe.
If I've forgotten anything, please PM me, and I'll either let you know or I'll update my review. Thanks!
Some may love it, and some may hate it. My review isn't to sway one side to the other; it is simply to just give as accurate a review of the device from MY EXPERIENCE. Reading the temporary M1 discussion shows that some units are a little iffy, while others are rock solid.
I will also try to keep this review as M1 independent as possible. I'm coming from the 9000, but checking my sig shows that I, like many of us, have owned a vast array of devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
**1 GB of dedicated memory to photos, videos, music, and voice memos**
This is great. Most people don't need this much, and some people will use it if they have it. I had a 2 GB miniSD and I only used about 1.3 GB and a lot of that was stuff just to have. Right now, I'm up to about 870 MB with about 100+ songs, a couple TV shows, and about a 100 pictures and some video from the camcorder. Would've been near perfect with expandable memory, but I think it's great.
**40 MB of dedicated memory to downloads (ringers, screen savers, applications, games, themes)**
Yes, this seems to be separate from the 1 GB of memory. In the file manager, my memory shows as 876560 KB used/129520 KB free which equals 1006080 KB (1.06 GB). My content memory usage shows as 8074 KB used/32886 KB free which equals 40960 KB (40 MB).
**2.0 MP camera**
The pictures are simply amazing. IMO the very best from Sprint yet, better than the a800, a940, 535, and even the 9000 (which took great pictures as well). Auto focus is great and the shutter speed is quick. No blurry pictures, like the a940. Night pictures are absolutely great thanks to the bright flash, and daytime pictures are phenomenal. Since the lens is on the back of the phone, and there is no external antenna, I can almost get away with using it as a real camera without anyone noticing...maybe when I take the sticker off the battery...
Another thing worth noting is that when in using the camera/camcorder with the phone closed, you can zoom in and out with the fast forward/rewind buttons on external control buttons.
Lastly, the videos are recorded in 320x240 and are super smooth! I put a video of me solving a Rubik's cube on youtube, and you probably wouldn't be able to tell that it's from a cell phone. It looks that good.
**Media Player**
Obviously, one of THE BEST things about this phone is that you can listen to music while browsing the web, sending a text, basically maneuvering everywhere on the phone sans applications, games, and taking pictures/video. Something I've noticed is that if you do have the media player running, the side volume control will only control the media player volume, even if it is minimized. Therefore, you can not adjust your phone's ringer unless you go through the menu settings. Inconvenient, but makes sense.
**Stereo Speakers**
They sound great, albeit, not as loud as the Sanyo 9000's one speaker. Music sounds great coming through them, and I've noticed that the "Jazz" setting on the equalizer seems to have the all-around best sound. Don't put the volume at the very loudest it can get; there will be some distortion. The one or two right below it seem to work out just fine. Unfortunately, I haven't tested out the speakerphone so I can't say anything about it.
**Screens**
Both screens are great. Internal is a gorgeous QVGA with 262k colors, and the external is wonderful as well. I don't know the exact resolution on the external and I'm not going to pretend like I do. But it's nice as well. You can watch videos on the external screen which is great. Just make sure to set the display as "full screen (icons off)" on the internal display, so that the icons don't block everything up on the external display.
**Reception**
Like I said in one of my posts in a one of the M1 threads, there's an area by my apartment where, whenever I would drive through it, I would almost always drop the call. I've driven through that area twice a day for this whole week, and I haven't dropped a call yet. Very promising. I've had no reception problems anywhere, and I haven't dropped any calls yet.
**UI**
Lightning fast. This is what sets Sanyo apart from many of the other manufacturers. When I want to look at my contacts, I can do it without lag. If I want to navigate around the menu, I am able to do so with no lag at all. All other phones not made by Sanyo have always had some sort of lag, some not too bad, some really bad (motos).
**4 Way Navigation Buttons**
Programmable!!! Nostalgic feelings for Samsung and LG were blasted away with a very much needed design change from Sanyo. In the past, the buttons were preprogrammed, but now they are programmable. Wonderful. One thing I have noticed though is that sometimes when I'm trying to press UP, I end up pressing OK instead...*shrug*...whenever I'm trying to press DOWN...I press DOWN. So I don't know what my problem is. Hehe.
**Keys**
As the phone is facing you:
Left side (Bottom to top)
Volume - controls the media player when it's running, the ringer setting for the phone when media player is not running, activates the flashlight when the phone is closed.
Memo - It's nice that this is again used for either ready link OR taking memos, the default being the latter. Since I don't use ready link, it was nice not having to change it.
Right side (Bottom to top)
Camera - launches a menu with camera, camcorder, and voice recorder options. Also activates each one.
Speakerphone - wow. So I just found out about this. I should've played with the phone more. I thought that the phone was lacking its independent voice dialing feature. On the 9000 it was activated by pressing and holding the TALK button. Thankfully, I wrote this review so I could find it! When you press the speaker button, it activates it, and it works marvelously. No programming, and it called each contact I tried perfectly, on the first try.
As options you have:
call
dial number
find
international
phone status
------------
more
go to
And I can access the voice dialing feature from my bluetooth headset. Speaking of bluetooth...
**Bluetooth**
I haven't used it as extensively as others most likely have, but I've done a few things. I transferred my contacts from my 8400 over (very quick), paired it up to my computer via USB dongle, paired it up to my Plantronics 330 (which by the way matches my M1 nicely - both are black with long silver lines)
Pairing with my headset was easy and I haven't had any problems yet. First few times I used my headset, there was a little bit of static and breaking up, but lately, I haven't noticed it. Everyone I've talked to never noticed I was on a headset either, so that's good. Probably a good combo, the M1 and the Plantronics. When I had the a900/a940/Fusic, I went through an HS850, H700, and Jabra 250v. The best was the Jabra, but was just uncomfortable after a while, and there was a little bit of static still, which could be heard on both ends. Now with my M1 and Plantronics 330, I've had no pairing problems, very little static problems, and no one has heard any static on my end.
(Little plug for the plantronics. It's wonderful. It doesn't sit outside your ear like the H700/HS850, and it doesn't go inside of your ear, completely blocking out sound on that side of the ear like the Jabra and others that use ear gels. It's kind of half way. There's a portion of the earpiece that goes inside the ear, but doesn't plug up the entire area, so you can still hear clearly out of it.)
I love that you can also bluetooth your texts and your calendar events.
**Looks**
I like it. Many don't. Many think it looks like a duplo (the giant legos). I think it looks hella nice. It has no antenna, it's black with a nice silver lining, and it has blue backlights. It's also a lot smaller than pictures of it make it look. I don't have another camera with me, and I'm at work, but it's as tall (closed) as a credit card is wide, and it's .75 cm thinner than the credit card is tall. Not sure if that makes sense, so how about:
9 cm tall closed/15.5 cm open, 4.5 cm wide, and 2.2 cm thick.
**Build Quality**
I'm not sure what the problem is. I read that there are supposed to be marks showing up on the hinge...but I don't see any. Maybe I haven't opened and closed it enough yet. *shrug* And yes, it's probably not as "solid" as the 8400 or another phone, but it's definitely not "cheap plastic" as it's been put. I don't know if people are trying to use it as a hammer or to crack open walnuts, but I mean, it's not going to break in your hands or pocket.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
All in all, if I were to rate it on a 1-10 scale, I'd give it as close to a 10 as I could get, without giving it a full 10. Now that I know it has independent voice dialing (thank God cuz stupid voice tags which never work), I would probably still have liked the expandable memory. I'm the type who will use it if I have it, and I'd like to put more Tenisu no Oujisama episodes on my phone...or Hana Yori Dango. Hehe.
If I've forgotten anything, please PM me, and I'll either let you know or I'll update my review. Thanks!