vB Easy Archive - My Panasonic A100 Review.

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My Panasonic A100 Review.
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Posted by: rohanpn

Hi there, I finally got an A100. Here's the loooong review. I'm sorry but I don't have a digital camera and the T610 photo resolution is bad, so no photos.

My Panasonic A100 review:

Well, for those of you who don’t know this, the Panasonic A100 is a revision update to the popular Panasonic GD55 ‘mini phone’. The GD55 was known for its ridiculously SMALL size. The A100 maintains that figure and adds just 1 gm to its weight making it a feathery 66g. The box pack includes: 1 Handset + 1 charger + 1 Manual. I guess the complimentary neck strap is not given anymore.

The phone is very small. And I MEAN small. One cannot imagine its size before actually seeing it. The SIM card slot is firm and sturdy, the battery has a lock and the cover fits nicely. There were some problems of Battery cover backlash in the GD55. Thankfully, the A100 has a new construction which solves this problem. Firstly, let me tell you that I have like REALLY big hands. So, I was a bit skeptical to buy this one. That said, I felt the softkeys and the call answer and call end buttons to be a bit small for my liking. But, this doesn’t pose to be a grave issue. The numpad is very comfortable and the buttons produce a clik-clak sound. The display is high resolution; one can compare it to the display of the SE T100. But the display is small in comparison of the displays on phones these days. That doesn’t affect the readability.

Now for the functions: This phone is a tri-band one, so you can use it almost anywhere in the world. But, one has to select the band manually. I don’t think this should be much of a hassle. The Games include Hit Mouse and Memory. The games are not a challenge once you play for about 10 mins. But this phone wasn’t made for games. If you want a phone for games, get an n-gage. The phone menu is confusing at first for non-panasonic people, but anyone can easily get used to it. I like the ‘Silent Profile’ shortcut on the numpad itself. All you have to do is press the # key for 2 secs. In Nokia phones, one has to press the power button, scroll down, and then select the ‘Discreet Mode’.

The WAP browser has been removed from this phone. Nor does it have GPRS. It would be nice if it had a dedicated memory for downloading polyphonic ringtones, but then, that could be asking for too much from a phone this size. So, there is no way one can download polyphonic ringtones, pictures etc. The way around this is the ‘Melody Creator’. But it isn’t as intuitive as Sony Ericsson’s Music DJ. If anyone knows any sites for ‘keypress ringtones’ for the GD55 (and now for the A100), please post. By the way, this phone features Polyphonic Ringtones and has 15 pre-installed. The ringtones are very loud but not so melodious. The phone has bright blue backlight for display as well as keypad which has a cool fade-out effect. Many people may turn down the phone for its external antenna, but you know what, it doesn’t create a problem at all. Other features include a Calendar. One can do 50 entries. This phone has a good 250 phonebook and a whopping 100 SMS memory. Cool. EMS is supported. I found a very few software quirks in the phone. For eg: The phone doesn’t display the Clock Screensaver if the keypad lock is activated. And, it is really difficult to set the person on the Speed dial. The buttons 1 to 9 make calls to people with the SIM card entries from 001 to 009. So, suppose, I wanted the Key 1 speed-dial to be X person, I would have to move the existing person to another position, and reset the X person’s position to 001. Also, the phone does not feature voice dialing nor does it have voice recording.

Many reviews pointed out that the GD55 had a really weak reception. I did not face any network drop outs in my 1.5 days of its usage. The Network bar was full all the time.
Call quality is great. The speaker-phone feature is very handy. It’s sound output isn’t as loud as Nokia, but loud enough to emulate your phone as a walkie-talkie. And besides, it’s good that it isn’t too loud, you wouldn’t want your conversations to be heard by those prying ears! Also, I tried my Nokia Boom Headset on the handsfree connector of this phone, and it worked! So, I am guessing all the Nokia non-pop-port headsets will work with this phone.

Battery is a Li-on 780 mAH. Battery performance is great. I fiddled with the phone the whole day and made a lot of calls, but still the battery indicator is 80% filled. Charging takes about 1.5 hours. I did notice that the phone gets hot while charging.

All in all, if you are the kind of person who wants VGA camera with video recording, MP3 compatibility, 176x208 pixel TFT 262K color display, and blah blah blah… in your phone, look somewhere else. This phone isn’t made for you.
But if you want a really small and light (66g) phone with speaker-phone feature and who just wants to make and receive calls, send and receive SMS and EMS or who wants to flaunt the size of the phone, this one’s definetly for you!

Hope this review helps in making an informed decision. Cheers!

Posted by: JDMpire

Thanks for the great gd5.....umm I mean A100 review!

I have a gd55, love it. Baically you just reviewed it, except for the battery and wap part!!

Ohh and the g51 phones dont come with the neckstrap either?!?!

Posted by: rohanpn

Hi there,
As we all know, the GD55 (and the A100) do not support downloading of polyphonic ringtones. But they do have a melody composer built-in. Does anybody know of any site that offers keypress ringtones that one would create using the melody composer.

I tried google and came to a dead end.

Posted by: thedon

i remember finding one, i'll see if i can find it again.... only problem is that every ringtone i found for this phone is chinese, guess that makes sense though seeing is how the phone is probably much more popular in asia

Posted by: rohanpn

I got one site which atleast offers keypress ringtones for the A100/GD 55.
Check out Universal Ringtones

But the problem is that they give only 1 track keypresses i.e monophonic i.e without the percussions etc.

I checked out a russian forum where they'd posted songs with complete keypress for the rest of the instruments as well.

Does anybody know any site in english which can provide for this?

Also, is there any service menu on panasonic phones like the one on Nokia (*#war0anty#) and SE? What is the code?

Posted by: rohanpn

Hi there,
Its been 2 days of my usage with the A100 and I am almost satisfied with this phone. I did a thorough scrutiny on the software and found out a few quirks. So, I listed them and e-mailed them to the Panasonic people in hope that they will revise these bugs in future firmware upgrades. But what are the chances? Let's keep those fingers crossed. Also, as we all know Howard is one of the mobile guru's known in the industry. Would it make an impact if the guru himself e-mailed these issues to the panasonic dept.? Howard, r u listening?

Here is the list of bugs that I spotted:

1) The Digital Clock Screensaver is not displayed when the key guard is turned on.
2) When receiving a call, the soft-key on the left displays ‘reply’. Since there is a dedicated ‘Answer’ button below the soft-key, it would be better if the left soft-key function while receiving a call was changed to ‘Hands free’ so that the user can start conversation without navigating in order to activate the ‘Hands free mode’ once the call has commenced.
3) The unlocking key guard procedure is very simple; hence if the ‘Free’ button is mistakenly hit twice, the keypad is easily unlocked. A ‘Free’ followed by the ‘* (Star)’ key would be more preferable.
4) To put a person’s number on the ‘Hotkey dial’ is not very easy. Suppose if the user wants X person’s phone no. on the Number 1 key, one has to change the position of the person already on the SIM card position 001 and then replace the X person’s position number to 001, which is very tiring.
5) Even when the clock is set in the 12-hour display mode, while setting the clock or even while setting the alarm, one is compelled to insert the correct time in 24-hour type style.
6) Users should have an option to automatically save all outgoing SMS messages in a ‘Sent items’ folder.
7) The ‘Search’ option in the phonebook is not easily accessible. It must lie with the rest of the items in the ‘Contacts’ menu.
8) There is a common volume level for the earpiece as well as the speaker phone. Hence, when one wishes to change from speaker phone to earpiece, he has to change the volume level during every call. The volume adjustor must be different for the earpiece and the speaker phone respectively.
9) There is no ‘Mute’ function during the call, so that once activated, the person at the other end does not hear the user’s conversation but the user can hear the other person.

Posted by: thedon

sounds exactly like my g50, i think thats just how panasonic os works so i don't see them changing it in any firmware upgrades or anything. everything u wrote i have noticed too, except for the search.... on my phone u just press names, then press the letter u are looking for and it'll go to that. other than that i've learned to live with all the phones quarks

the one thing i can't stand though is there setup for t9, the zero button is a space and all the puctuation marks so it takes forever to write words like i'm, with most phones it takes three keypress, with the panasonic it takes 15 or something like that

Posted by: rohanpn

Quote:

the one thing i can't stand though is there setup for t9, the zero button is a space and all the puctuation marks so it takes forever to write words like i'm, with most phones it takes three keypress, with the panasonic it takes 15 or something like that

Very true. I faced the same problem.

Posted by: ihaveangeleyes

Hi,
I bought the cute little a100 yesterday and i have noticed all the quirks - there is one you have missed out though. when sending a message and wanting to use a number out of the phone to send the message to - the number must be in the the sim card phone book, not the phonebook on the actually phone!!

Other than that i think this cute little phone is FANTASTIC!!

If anyone does find a site with keypress tones PLEASE let me know... i have been searching for hours now....