SANYO MM-7400: A Great Example of Why I Can't Break my Sanyo Habit
Written: Jan 10 '05 (Updated Aug 29 '05)
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Pros: Beautiful looks. Sturdy. Good battery life. Gadgets and gizmos. Loud speakerphone.
Cons: Camera light's a joke. Buddy's a rat. What, all this stuff and no Bluetooth?
The Bottom Line: Sanyo's new MM-7400 is a hip new feature-rich phone that, while not a Blue Tooth phone, packs plenty of punch. It's attractive, it's durable, and I recommend it.
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| vara's Full Review: Sanyo MM-7400 Cellular Phone |
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a Sanyo man. My days with Sanyo date waaaaay back to the old "Snicker-sized" SCP-4000. My next model, the SCP-5300 (the first camera phone), was a bit of a letdown: it seemed to lack the quality I had come to expect from a Sanyo phone. Finally it phone wouldn't close properly anymore, and my battery would drain faster than you could say "Bob's your uncle". It was time for a change...
And this time, I honestly set out with an open mind. Enough with this cellular descrimination. I toured the field of vast choices Sprint PCS had to offer, from all brands.
THE HUNT
One in particular that almost won my heart was the Toshiba VM4050... its gorgeous 18-bit display rivaled that of pocket PC's... but in the end it felt even flimsier than my old phone, and although the Radio Shack employee swore it never produced any complaints, I still decided to look elsewhere (though you probably should give it a look).
The next runner up was the Samsung VM-A680... a sleek little video phone that really seemed to do a lot for such a small size. In the end I decided to go for the MM-7400 because it had a speaker phone.
The Sanyo VM4500, of course had all of that: a speakerphone, video camera, Ready-Link... but in the end, I liked the MM-7400's more solid feel, better looks... and the extra toys (more later)!
So I swallowed hard, plunked down the $379 (knowing a $150 rebate was coming my way soon), and bought me the MM-7400.
OUT OF THE BOX
Although no midget, the Sanyo MM-7400 feels nice and small, fits perfectly in your hand... and unlike the other phones I was playing with, this one felt very sturdy: the rubberized sides made the phone look like one from Nextel - an obvious nod to the marque, newly acquired by Sprint. The phone opens with a reassuring click, and when pressed to my ear, I don't feel I'm going to break it in half. It closes with a nice thud.
And looks! I'm not one for falling in love with inanimate objects, but boy, this thing is sexy! It comes with two face plates (silver and deep red) which you can choose from. Call me vain, but I like showing this phone off in public. The faceplates are easy to swap, snapping on securely without annoying squeaks or rattles. I'm planning on buying the faceplate kit that includes the onyx, ocean blue, and navy blue colors ($20). The cool thing about these faceplates is that your phone won't age so quickly... if a faceplate gets scuffed up, swap it out, or buy a new one! Simple.
On the inside, though, the phone doesn't really look so attractive. Frankly, I find the drab gray color rather depressing and unexciting. Plus, although spaced out nicely, the buttons are still the flat hard-to-press variety... why are the cell phone makers sticking to this? The Toshiba had nice soft-touch buttons that were slightly raised from the base... I wish Sanyo had taken notice. I also wish they had taken notice of the Toshiba's gorgeous display, because while nice, the Sanyo's doesn't even compare.
WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT THIS PHONE?
Aside from cosmetics and a slightly better battery, the only thing that really sets the MM-7400 apart from other Sanyo models is its multimedia player. Now here's a sweet gadget: at the touch of a button, you can watch TV on your phone! There's two basic types available. The first is pre-packaged programming from available channels like NBC, ABC, CNN to Go, Fox Sports, mFlix, E!, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Accuweather, and the Weather Channel. It's not LIVE TV: rather, it's updated once or twice daily. Video quality is very good, at the advertised speed of 30 frames per second.
The second form of programming is MobiTV, a service that provides live streaming TV to your mobile phone (about 15 seconds behind real TV). It is awesome to watch the news as it happens. For a list of channels (there's like 21 of them), go to http://www.mobitv.com
Being the techie geek I am, I bought both services to compare them. The SprintTV (pre-packaged) isn't live, but the video quality is better. I'm still undecided as to which I'm staying with.
My only complaint about the Media Player is that I can only watch TV in quiet places as the audio isn't loud enough through the speakerphone (you can connect a headset).
Of course, if you wanna watch TV, it's gonna cost you extra. You can subscribe to individual channels like CNN to Go for five dollars a month, or you can subscribe to the "Sprint TV" package (which includes NBC news, ABC news, Fox Sports, Weather Channel, Discovery, Comedy, Toon World) for ten bucks a month. I opted for the latter, and am pretty happy with it. MobiTV is also ten bucks monthly, and you can opt out at any time.
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WHAT'S TO LIKE ABOUT IT?
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Looks: Did I mention this thing is attractive? Gotten tons of compliments. Moving on...
Great battery life: The advertised 3.5 hours of talk time and 10 days standby is pretty much on the money, although I confess I've never gone ten days in a row without using the phone (what, are you crazy?). I've gone two to three days with regular usage of the phone before needing to charge it. Plus, the battery indicator is pretty accurate: it doesn't suddenly drop from "full" to "empty". So... chalk a big point up to Sanyo on this one.
Good reception: Haven't had a call dropped yet. My old Sanyo had this nasty habit of having a sporadic signal... 4 bars one second, 1 bar the next. Not this phone. Very stable.
Gadgets, Gizmos, and Gadgets (oh my)!
Multimedia Player. Video and digital camera. Speakerphone. Ready Link. Mobile Internet Browser. Advanced Voice Recognition. This little phone does quite a lot! 7
I've talked enough about the Multimedia player, but I'll again repeat: it's awesome. I'm very happy with it!
The video camera... quality is decent for a phone, although the mic doesn't pick up speech very well unless the person is right in front of you. You can send and receive videos online... only problem is, none of my friends have video phones yet, so I'm feelin' a little lonely!
The digital camera is only VGA (not megapixel), but the quality is nice enough, and pics no longer have the yellowish hue that my old camera did. It loads up quickly, and there's almost no delay when I press the button to take a picture. The camera has several toys you can play with, such as frames, black and white mode, or antique mode. Another cool new thing is that you can instantly send your newly taken pictures to FujiFilm to have them developed and mailed to you using your phone! Pretty nifty.
The speakerphone is one of the best that I've heard: it's loud and it works well in the car. I've used it pretty frequently while driving, and with the exception of my girlfriend, no one really seems to object.
The Ready Link feature is one I have yet to tap into, but it supposedly works just like the walkie-talkie style that Nextel has... no big surprise since, as I said before, Sprint has acquired Nextel. Still, once my family gets newer phones with this feature, I foresee myself using it a lot.
The Mobile Internet Browser still utilizes the "microweb", which means you can't just hop onto the regular Internet and see everything. Still, you can see your news, sports scores, weather outlook, stocks, e-mail, and find things on Google, including images. Another great thing about this phone: the web is pretty fast! Faster than any other phone I've used.
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WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?
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Price: Paid $379 retail ($406 with tax). With the rebate the price is still a lofty $250. Ouch! A little steep, in my opinion. Shortly after I bought it, Sprint put an online deal that knocked another $30 off the price. Double whammy.
No bluetooth capability: Bluetooth is a new technology that's all the buzz with today's phone. If your phone is Bluetooth enabled, you can use wireless headsets to make and answer calls in your car, even while the phone is in the trunk (no clumsy wires). You can also download/upload stuff to and from your computer without wires. If you have a Bluetooth enabled PDA, you can use the phone to connect to the internet. That's not all... people are saying that someday you'll be able to use it as a TV remote and even to start your car... no joke!
Needless to say, to hear that this phone, with all its gee-whiz gadgetry, had no Bluetooth was a disappointment. You mean to tell me that I can watch TV on this phone, but it has no Bluetooth capability? Guess I'll have to wait a little longer before riding this "wave of the future."
Finicky Advanced Voice Dialing: This new feature was supposed to take the headache out of voice dialing. Instead of pre-recording names to call, the phone now supposedly can recognize a spoken name, without pre-programming, and independent of the person placing the call.
Usually, this feature works pretty well, but can be a pain. For starters, the menu navigation is clumsy. First I have to press a "Voice Command" button. I wait for a beep. I say "Contact". I wait for another beep. And then, I say the name of who I want to call. Why can't I just say "Call so-and-so", and be done with it? And what's up with having to say something dorky like "contact", anyway (my friends joke with me about it)? Plus, the voice recognition isn't perfect. For some reason when I say "Home" to call my folks, it always asks if I meant "Ivan", a friend of mine who is also in my phone book. Since when does "HOME" sound like "IVAN"? It's gotten so bad I've actually considered taking Ivan out of my phone book. Sorry there, old friend!
Musical ringers not loud enough: My chief complaint of my older Sanyos is that musical ringers never were loud enough... I'd always have to resort to the shrill ringers in order to hear my phone. Musical ringers on this phone, while improved, still might not be loud enough to be heard in a crowded room. Why this is still the case is beyond me.
Weak camera light and flash: One look at this phone's tiny flash, and it's obvious it'll make a lousy light source in dark situations. Folks have to be right in front of the camera in order to be seen, and once the camera is at about an arm's length away, the flash is useless.
Awkward camera placement: I'm nit-picking here, but while I'm on the subject of the camera, why is the lens located exactly where my finger would be while I'm filming (with the phone open)? Some of the cheaper Sanyo phones actually have it right, with the lens on the other side of the cover, away from your fingers.
Final nit-pick: my buddy's a rat! For those of you who have seen Sanyo phones, there's this cute little cartoon "buddy" that does random stuff to entertain you. Some phones have polar bears, others have aliens, and still others have cute dogs. My stupid phone has a Stuart-Little-Wannabe rat! What's up with that? I turned this feature off. Personally, I think it's a waste of memory space and should have been alotted to more storage space for pictures/movies.
VERDICT: One pleased repeat Sanyo customer!
Sure, I'd appreciate BlueTooth technology, and sure I wish for a couple other small details to be ironed out. But those are small details, after all, and I feel Sanyo got all the important stuff right this time. I have absolutely no regrets buying this phone... it's the best one I've bought to date, and I have a feeling that sentiment (and the phone) is going to last me a good while. I highly recommend it, especially as the prices begin to fall.
UPDATE:
ARRGH!!!! My phone was stolen! Being that I just recently renewed my Sprint PCS contract, I can't get another one unless I pay full price (which is umm... too much.)
Instead, I opted for a used Treo 650 SmartPhone. My friends... smartphones are the wave of the future. Honest. I love mine. Review to come soon?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Member: Daniel Ramirez
Location: Miami Beach, FL
Reviews written: 121
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About Me:
You want a 15 word autobiography? Are you mad, sir?!
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