More Pros than Cons
Written: Jun 11 '01 (Updated Jul 01 '01)
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Pros: Small, Excellent Ergonomics, Long Battery Life, Good Clarity, Tri-Mode, Lots of Features and Accessories
Cons: Antenna seems flimsy, but easy to replace if broken, Expensive Batteries!
The Bottom Line: This is a lot of phone for the money. It offers the most bang for the buck that I've seen. The positive easily eclipses the negative.
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| toyfan's Full Review: Kyocera QCP 2035a Cell Phone |
I recently purchased this phone from Verizon as an upgrade to my rate plan (I had an old OKI 1325 from the TeleGo plan) and I'm very pleased with it. My rate plan went from 100 analog minutes a month to 150 peak and 2000 weekend minutes a month, plus free Nationwide long distance from my generous home plan area. And the monthly rate plan is $5 less than the previous plan.
This phone is small and lightweight and the keys are easy to use, even with a case over them. The phone fits well in my hands and the screen is easy to read as well. Contrary to what I've read in the "more info" section of some websites, the keypad does light up on mine, which I find essential. I've carried the phone in my pocket with it off and never had the keys activate. I've since moved on to a case with a belt clip, more on that later.
The text increases in size (doubles?) when entering a phone number, which really helps to see it. The main screen also displays the battery indicator, I had to go into the menu to see it on my previous phone. For those who like to customize, the display settings offer myriad choices, such as letting you enter what you want displayed when your phone is on stand-by (banner). I've never connected to the Web on my phone, so I don't know how it displays that. The call timer automatically displays the duration of the calls, both sent and received.
As far as features and accessories go it has so many, I hardly know where to begin. Different color faceplates are available, in case you don't like the one it comes in. Mine is champagne, or what I assume others call gold, and I like it. I've seen so many colors and styles of faceplates, I can't even begin to list them here. If you bought them all you could easily go for weeks without repeating a color.
15 ringers plus vibrate mode is more than I need. You can't download them like with some phones, but the number is more than enough for my needs, my old phone had only one. You can also select different rings for calls you have designated business or personal in your contact list.
It has a plethora of alerts, so many I can't list them all. Some can be customized, letting you choose how you want to receive alerts from voicemail, pages, text messages and the Wireless Web. The options for that are varied, including having reminder beeps or vibrations every five minutes until the message is acknowledged, and choice of low or high volume audible alerts. Other alerts can be real money savers, like roam/service alert. I have mine set to alert to any change in service, so if I roam or lose digital and go to analog, it beeps. These alerts help me be aware of extra charges and conserve battery life, as analog drains power at a faster rate. It also alerts to loss of service, the call quality is usually so clear that you might not be aware the call has dropped without it. All alerts can be set to light up the phone or vibrate if you desire, by using the "Silence All" feature.
It has the ability to list 200 contacts in your phone, and designate them as home, mobile, pager, fax or work. Really handy to have that. The speed dialing is awesome, easier than my old phone, as is the one touch dialing. Calling a number from the contact list is as easy as highlighting it and hitting the green "send" button. Text entry is not difficult, and options on that include T9, though I've used only the standard alpha.
The Smart Sound feature is useful. It automatically adjusts the earpiece volume based on the noise level around you or the other person's voice volume level. This comes in handy when on the road, no distraction or struggling to hear. It also helps when talking with those who are very loud or soft spoken. You can still manually adjust the volume with this feature on.
The alarm clock feature is a real plus, any place your phone goes you have one. The calculator and tip calculator are neat tools also. Haven't used the game (brick attack) as I rarely play video games and that is the least of my criteria for a phone.
This phone is Internet ready, though I have no plans to use that now. It also has text messaging, which I may use at some time in the future, haven't yet. With my rate plan it's ten cents to send and two cents to receive a message, as I pay nothing per month for this feature. Other rate plans are available for those who send lots of messages. You can designate the message as urgent if need be and the icon for it (envelope) will flash. Messages may be sent to and from email as well as to other compatible wireless phones. I've been told sending between an email address requires Wireless Web Service, I'm not sure. Sending between phones doesn't though.
Call clarity is excellent with this phones, the CDMA Digital is outstanding. I've used TDMA and GSM phones that my friends have, and the quality is at least as good or better than those. It also has PCS and Analog capability, and I've tested it in Analog (has a feature in the menu under network that lets you switch to Analog for the duration of one call and automatically switches back to digital) and it's sounds better than my old OKI 1325. I use it mostly in the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area, and have lost about five percent of my calls (dropped), all indoors in weak signal areas. It does have excellent clarity in digital mode even where low signal strength is indicated, and works well indoors in strong signal areas, usually close to freeways.
The battery life is outstanding so far, with stand-by of four days while talking about 45 minutes in those days. When I talk a lot on the weekends, the stand-by is about two days and the talk time about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. If I leave it off until I place a call, I can talk for the promised 3.5 hours! I've done this three times. Compared to my OKI 1325 battery life, this exceeds the three batteries I had for it put together!
It has a standard 2.5mm ear jack on the side of the phone, as well as a data port and charger jack. It can be used with a cradle charger too. There are numerous accessories on the market now, try the Kyocera Wireless store online, Verizon has accessories too. I don't recommend after-market stuff, especially anything electrical i.e. batteries, chargers or plug-in accessories. This phone requires the Hands-free Car Kit accesory to use auto answer.
I purchased a belt clip at RadioShack, an authorized Verizon dealer, but it was a generic-universal that stuck on the back of the phone. I let it "set" longer than the instructions said to, and it fell off the phone while putting it on my belt the first time! Thank the stars my phone didn't drop at some time while wearing it, with my luck it would have fallen in a puddle or I wouldn't have noticed it. I then purchased a leather case with a clear plastic key and display cover from a Verizon store. The sales guy said the belt clips (even the Kyocera kind, which clip to the phone, no adhesive necessary) still break a lot because they stick out more and people walk into things, occasionally damaging phones. So my experience is go OEM, or manufacturer's authorized only, and then ask the experts about those products.
I think this phone will be fairly durable, haven't had it long. It is light weight, and that scares some people. I have two friends with this phone, both of whom treat it like they are in a combat zone and it's G.I. issued military gear, dropping it frequently. They have not damaged their phones by dropping them so far, but one friend damaged his by forcing the headset plug into the charger jack. He got it confused with the Nokia 5190's way of using a headset (there is a headset icon on the 2035a phone by the headset jack). He had to replace the phone as he bent the pin in the middle of the charger jack with the ear plug, the ear plug is not hollow like the charger plug. Read the manual, and go to the Kyocera website and view the demo, it's more detailed than the schematic in the manual. You know the saying about assume? Better safe than sorry.
A final bit of trivial info; Kyocera gets their name from the city in Japan where they are HQ'd (Kyoto) and the fact that they first made ceramics. Junk food type info I know, but hey, I figured I'd add some calories to this review.
I hope this review helps ya'll (Texan talk for all of you) as much as the ones I read here on the 2035a and the 2035. Thank you to everyone who reviewed or replied to those reviews, good or bad. You helped me more than any company write up could have.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 29.99
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Epinions.com ID:
toyfan
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 1 member
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