SCP-5000 is a real head turner!
Written: Aug 11 '01
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Pros: Small, light weight, sleek, dual LCDs, solid construction, large screen.
Cons: High cost, comparatively low battery life
The Bottom Line: This would have been an even better phone if it didn't suck up battery power so fast. Great for bragging rights.
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| Shnit's Full Review: Sanyo SCP-5000 |
The SCP-5000 is not a practical phone when you weigh its cost and benefits with other competing phones. But, really... who ever said the SCP-5000 was targeted to practical people?
This sleek and beautiful phone is really made for gadget freaks. People who just want to show off; to make people look in envy and salivate. There's nothing wrong with this, though. I'm one of these people.
The engineers at Sanyo has carefully crafted this work of art to appeal to the world of the vane. The SCP-5000 carries beautiful clean lines and curves in a perfectly small and tight package. The sub-LCD screen provides just the right amount of information to the user, such as the signal strength, time, battery life, sound mode, and whether or not you have messages (both voice and text). The LCD screen can glow in orange or green, depending on circumstances. One nice feature of this is that text messages received can scroll across the screen so you don't even have to flip open the phone to be able to receive them. Convenient. The history of calls or messages can be quickly viewed using the scroll buttons on the side of the phone.
When you flip open the phone, the first thing you would notice is the large 256 color screen. The screen is actually an LCD screen using a similar reflective side light technology found in PDA's such as the Compaq Ipaq. The color images on the screen is of relatively poor quality, but the fact that it has color at all would put it near the cutting edge of technology. The combination of a larger screen and higher resolution allows the phone to display many lines of information in different font sizes. This feature is quite important to me as I receive quite a few email messages that I would like to read without scrolling down at every word. The screen itself is relatively dim, however, it can be seen in just about any lighting condition (thanks to the reflective technology). The only major downside I can see on this display is the sidelight really sucks up a lot of battery power. So if you want to save your power, I would suggest that you turn the sidelight off.
I won't get into too much detail about many of the features of this phone, as they are quite comparable to many of the other competing phones such as the Samsungs. However, I would like to point out that this phone can attach to your PC computer via a serial cable to download image files and sound files. Aside from a good wallpaper, the ability to download image files is not very useful in my mind. The advertisments brag about the phone's "photo caller-id" capabilities, but really... by the time you receive a call, the phone is in your ear before you can admire the beautiful 256 color pop-up images of your wife or girlfriend.
However, the ability to download songs onto your phone that can play multiple and simultaneous notes is a real plus. You can finally get quality, multi-tone melodies on your phone and do away with the boring monotone rings of other phones.
Other than that, the rest of the features on this phone is quite similar to the others. Just don't expect too much out of the battery life if you are going to use the display light often.
So, is the high purchase price really justified for this phone? If you are a practical person, you would definately say no. However, if you are like me (a person who feels a need to own a phone that no one else has....and a need to look good with it), you would say "YES" with a proud and stern voice. The SCP-5000 is just too beautiful to pass up.
And life is too short to be like everyone else.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250
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Epinions.com ID:
Shnit
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Location: Toronto, Canada
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 1 member
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