Sprint PCS Video Phone Shootout - Features
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All these models have a number of features that would make them attractive to any general cellphone user as well as anyone who is looking for more bells and whistles.
Menu Styling
All three offer similar menu styles, where you can pick from either a Graphic menu interface or a list of settings line-by-line. One thing that stands out in a Toshiba VM4050 model is that you can actually customize a whole another menu screen by yourself, using shortcuts and then accessing it just by hitting a “My Menu” soft key on the keypad. It gives you flexibility to design your own set of icons on your personal menu for easy access, and you can change the order in which they appear or their position on the phone’s display. Sanyo’s menu looked a little dull and grainy compare to the rest and we actually had to change the menu style to text for better understanding and contrast.
LCD Screen Features
Given that the models here are all camera phones, you are able to see the picture while you are taking it on both the main LCD screen as well as the sub-LCD screen when the phone is closed. Again the Toshiba stands out with a vibrant display which gives it a truly unfair advantage over the other two phones when taking pictures; images look more real and colors look amazing. As far as the sub-LCD screens go, Samsung has both beat by a lot, having a very crisp and clear outside display, and you can see that when you are trying to take a picture with the phone closed. On Toshiba and Sanyo the sub-LCD image looks a little “watered down” compared to it. Also on Samsung and Toshiba, we have an interesting feature that some of us will find to their advantage: you can select backlighting to be continuously on. You probably going to run down your battery quicker, but in some cases it helps (maybe when the next blackout happens, you won’t need a flashlight).
Screensavers and Images
Although Samsung has a number of screen savers and images from National Geographic collection that are sharp and colorful, nothing beats the set of pre-loaded images on the Toshiba using the full advantage of the 260,000 colors that the display has. Nice feature on it is that you can assign the screensaver not only to each day of the week but for special events as well. For example: you will have an image of a disco ball on your screen every Saturday or a flag screensaver for 4th of July. On both these phones you can also assign pictures taken with the phone as background images to front and sub-LCDs and put your videos as screensavers. Animated screensavers are a huge plus to these models since it gives you a whole new level of customizing your phone. I think that is one of the most important features that Sanyo VM4500 lacks, but we can’t forget that it pioneered the video phone market almost a year ago and the latter two are fairly recent models.
Cameras
All models here have built-in cameras that allow them to take still pictures at 640x480 resolution as well as 15 second short video clips with sound. Pictures come out fit for a webcam-style resolution but no matter what, they still look better when taken on the Toshiba model with its big lcd display. All three cameras offer fun frames, zoom and flash as well as video light for shooting the movie clips at night. Samsung has three resolutions that you can change for the camera (640x480 320x240 and 160x120) when the rest have only 2 (640x480 and 320x240) I honestly have no idea why you would want 160x120 to begin with, but it is an option to whoever wants it to be that way. The movie light is the brightest on the Samsung model as well. What I didn’t like about the Toshiba is that in order to put fun frames on the picture or date stamp it or use zoom, you had to back out of the 640x480 mode and change the resolution down to be able to use those. But in its defense, VM4050’s camera had a finder scope to align the image better before you take it and a 4x zoom which works with side buttons as well. A good mention about the Samsung camera – multi-shot feature allowing 3 simultaneous still shots.
Miscellaneous
Voice dial is present on all three with a slight variation on the Samsung, where you can actually set up digit-dial and train the phone so you can speak the number out loud and have your phone dial it for you. There are Alarm clock and PIM (organizer) features on these models as well as customizable ringers for every single phone book entry, which are becoming standard features on all handsets out there today.
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