Is R380s really good?
Written: Nov 28 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: PDA, Gray-Scale display, Illumination, Sound quality
Cons: Phone mode, Size
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| drazen's Full Review: Ericsson R380s Cell Phone |
What to say about Smartphone R380?
Is it really so smart as Ericsson says?
Before R380 I had R320. Normally I expected that R380 will be successor of R320 with PDA build-in. But after buying R380 I was totally disappointed.
R380 is actually two units in one, PDA and GSM Phone. Ericsson paid more attention to PDA part and Phone part was neglected and there lies my disappointment.
Lets start with R380 as phone. All good stuff found in R320 is missing (Profiles, Accept Calls, Groups, Caller Groups (CUG), Two lines (ALS)). Also R380 does not support Fax calls at all!!!
In phone mode is a menu with only 4 entries (Phonebook, SMS (Inbox), Calendar, Phone menu (settings)). Let start with SMS menu. In phone mode is only possible to read SMS but nothing more! You have to go to PDA mode to read, replay, delete SMSs. Terrible. Imagine trying to delete SMS walking down the street! There is also a Phonebook. It is short version of Contacts in PDA mode. Entering phonebook is easy. You can press Phonebook button, go to menu and choose phonebook or press and hold button with letter you want to start searching (eg. to find Norman press and hold 6. You get names starting with letter M, press 6 again and there are names with N). This mode is similar to R320. Forget searching in Phonebook! There is no search option in Phone mode!?
Beside Phonebook and SMS reading there is appointment menu with list of all appointments for current day (like in SMS forget deleting, editing, etc) and Phone Menu where is possible to change Ring volume, Divert, Keylock, etc.
PDA mode is different story. You have Contacts, Appointments, Notepad, real EMail client using POP3 account, WAP browser, Calculator, one Game and Clock with alarm. All you need.
For every contact is possible to specify name, phone numbers, EMail addresses, URL, notice but not the birthday. With Notepad you can write notes, using WAP browser is possible to browse WAP pages (real WWW browser will be better). Clock with alarm has two time zones - Home and Destination. Really good is EMail client with POP3 support. In PDA Inbox are grouped all messages: SMS, EMail, Notifications, Configurations. All is on one place. Reading/Sending EMail is like with Microsoft Outlook. Choose New EMail, write it and press Send. It is possible to send SMS (even if longer than 160 chars), EMail thru SMS, Fax thru SMS, EMail thru POP3 account. R380 can even read EMail attachments but only few of them (vCard, vAppointment, plain text). Support for Microsoft Office files fails.
What about hardware?
Display is large (9 x 3cm), gray scale with very good contrast and lightning (white). Tapping is possible with fingers but best with supplied pencil. Sound is clear and full. There is also Office Hands-free mode with two levels. Flip with buttons is solid and hard to break.
R380 is very good phone but Phone mode MUST be improved.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
drazen
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Reviews written: 1
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