Virgin Mobile Kyocera M1000 Wild Card Cell Phone - Design
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I'm not overly impressed with the appearance of the Kyocera Wild Card. Its body is rather clunky looking. The phone itself is a boxy shape, and it isn't very thin. The overall dimensions of the Wild Card are 3.94" by 1.97" by 0.79", and it weighs about four ounces. Despite my dislike of its overall look, the buttons, controls, and keyboard are laid out in a nice ergonomic fashion.
The Wild Card features a 1.5" display on the front which boasts 128 by 128 resolution and approximately 262,000 colors. This display looks okay, but not great. It is larger than the Wild Card's predecessor's (Kyocera Switchback), so that is definitely an improvement.
The front keypad has been slightly redesigned on the Wild Card; it is now flatter. This may not be an improvement for some people, because it may make typing in a number a bit more difficult for those with larger fingers. The navigation pad is also pretty flat; this may make it difficult to use.
Other notable features on the outside of this device include a dedicated volume control on the side, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a camera shutter button, and the actual digital camera on the back. The camera's resolution is 1.3 mega pixels; it also boasts flash and digital zooming capabilities. In other words, it's nothing too extravagant.
The Wild Card opens up to reveal a very nice full QWERTY keyboard and another LCD screen. The keyboard features decent-sized rounded keys that have a nice tactile feel to them - very nice for texting or emailing. The 1.8" display, on the other hand, could be much larger. I don't know why Kyocera didn't take advantage of the available real estate on this phone to make a wider screen. It probably has something to do with cost, but in my opinion it would have been worth it. It's not easy on your eyes to play games, email, or view web pages on a 1.8" screen for any extended period of time.
Overall, I have a few minor gripes with the design of the Wild Card, but when all is said and done, this phone is great for texting and emailing, with a nice keyboard and solid build quality.
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