vB Easy Archive - REVIEW Virgin Mobile Slider Sonic

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REVIEW Virgin Mobile Slider Sonic
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Posted by: cuke

REVIEW: SLIDER SONIC FROM VIRGIN MOBILE

I received my new Slider via FedEx yesterday

. Inside the box I found VM's standard hard to open bubble packaging and a "Fits Any Style", high quality, bi-lingual promo pamphlet (a serious waste of money). Total cost $270.61

Packaged with the phone was a standard battery, battery charger, 32Mb TransFlash card with the SD adapter in a storage case, sterio handsfree headset, and a USB serial cable. The included documation is bi-lingual (english/spanish) with the exception of the 60 page user guide which is english only. (I guess VM and/or Kyrocera assume, if you speak spanish, you should know how to use this phone.)

My first impression of the phone

... it's black... semi-gloss black with silver buttons. Not my first choice of colors, but that's the only color avaliable. I guess its not bad looking. It's my second black phone, the first was covered with a colored neoprene boot. It may take some getting used to, but I guess its a matter of personal taste. This phone is slightly taller than the original slider, and more square in appearance. A few additional external buttons were added for camera and volume control. The "back" button was moved to slide face which I found makes it much easier to use. It can be used to enable the key lock feature by press and hold. The headphone jack and memory slot are located on opposite sides of the phone with their flexible dust covers. On the back, you'll find the speaker and camera.

Battery installation is simple. This is the smallest battery any of the phones have ever owned, which is suprising. You might think the MP3 player would be a power hog. For those who like to have a spare battery charging, battery removal may become a problem if the cheap little pull tab should tear off.

Powering up the phone, the color display slaps you in the face. It's larger and brighter than the display on the old Slider. A definate improvement, but expected in a multimedia phone. Side viewing of the display is acceptable, but vertical angles cause some brightness and color change. Overall the display gets a thumbs up.

The phone slides open smoothly, and the silver buttons have a blue backlight that stays on momentarly. The keypad buttons are large enough for big fingers, but to smooth and flat to dial without looking. Above the standard keypad are buttons to enable the speaker phone and the MP3 player.

Pressing the left soft key brings up the ten item menu. Navigation is simple using the directional pad. Three menu styles are avalable including a graphical wheel, which adds a nice touch, but I found the wheel to be slower to navigate. Several color themes, ringers, wallpapers, and screensavers are avaliable to suit your style. I found the included wallpaper and screensavers to be somewhat plain and annoying.

I downloaded a game and a screensaver. Downloads went smoothly, but I had two restarts for the game. The game cost $5.99, the screensaver $1.99. In the gaming world, the $6 for the game is understandable, but $2 for the screensaver is a joke. Other service providers charge less for both.

The TransFlash card is damn small! The size of my fingernail, and very thin. VM provided it with an SD adapter that will allow you to use it with a computer that is SD enabled. Inserting the card in the phone was somewhat difficult with my large fingers, and the dust cover wants to get in the way. I used a pencil eraser to click it in place. The phone automaticaly formats a new card upon insertion, but not a previously formatted card. The user manual doesn't explain this clearly.

Using the serial cable is simple. Just plug it into your phone and a USB port on your computer. WindowsXP automatically sets everything up, and a new drive will appear. Simple drag and drop to add MP3 or WMA files, and the same to get your videos. Don't get too excited yet. You can't do anything else. You can't add ringers, wallpaper or screensavers. In fact, you can't even download your photos. A very big thumbs down here. Something else I should note, Win98 users are out of luck. There are no drivers avalable for this serial cable, so your limited to using the TransFlash adapter in your computers SD slot. Whats that? You don't have an SD slot, well... I guess you'll have download and pay for your music.

The KX5 phone (New Slider) is capable of saving images, ringers, music, etc. to either the phone memory or the TransFlash card, but VM has disabled this feature. Most likely to force you to buy the junk they offer online. Two big thumbs down to VM's greed destroying useable features of this phone. Additionally, the KX5 is also avaliable with bluetooth, and again, not on VM's Slider.

Taking pictures and video with the camera is fairly simple. Push and hold the external camera button to enable the camera in still mode. A second time to enable video mode. Pushing the left soft-key captures a photo or starts/stops the video. The right soft-key in video mode acts as a pause so you can start and stop recording while using the same file. There are several "frames" that can be added to your photos, but only when taking the picture. A zoom feature is avalable, but not at the highest image size (640x480). Captured photos seem slightly dark, but there is a low light mode and flash. Some photo editing capability is avaliable to change brightness, contrast, image size, rotation, sharpness, saturation, hue, and color tone. There's also an auto adjust feature. Video capture records sound. Video files are in 3GP format. Most media players don't support this format yet, but conversion software is avaliable.

The volume control, in addition to adjusting ringer volume, allows you to set silence, vibrate, and "loud and vibrate" modes. It also controls speaker and headset volume.

A large LED on the phone top lights up when you receive a call and when using the camera video capture. It also indicates charging status (red/green) when the charger is attached. I noticed that the display backlight stays on when charging with the phone off, but turns off when charging with the phone on. The battery may charge quicker with the phone on.

The MP3 player plays through the included headset and the speaker. Using your own headphones or speakers requires buying an adapter. The included headset (sterio "earbuds" and a wire mounted microphone) plays music and sounds in sterio, but calls are in the left earphone only. A button next to the microphone allows pausing the music. Music playback is smooth with quality comparable to most stand alone MP3 players. With the 32Mb card I could only get 5 songs onboard. You'll need to get a larger memory card to get efficient use of the MP3 player and video capture. A 256Mb card sells for about $40. (SanDisk Website 256Mb $45, Circuit City 128Mb $25, online sites 256Mb low as $31)

Of course you can also use the Slider as a phone. I found reception was slightly better than my K9. I live in a fringe area, and most of the time could not make calls indoors with the K9, but the Slider works. Sound was clear and understandable. The people I talked to said the could hear me well. Contacts can have multiple numbers, email addresses, web pages, and street addresses. There's also roome for a note. You can assign specific ringers and photos as caller ID which is a nice feature. Voice dialing is avalable if you record tags for your contacts. It seems to work well. I had a few contacts that it wouldn't recognize, but re-recording the voice tag fixed the problem.

A few complaints I have are that the push and hold feature found on other Kyocera phones for the nav button shortcuts is gone. If you bump the button at the wrong time while navigating you may end up connecting to your account page. Disconnecting takes a few seconds, and you may incure additional unwanted charges. The standard battery discharges to quickly, and the memory card capacity is to small. Purchasing the extended battery and a larger memory card will be a necessity for most people who want to use the additional features of the phone.

Overall I give the phone a thumbs up, but combine it with Virgin Mobile prices and disabled features, it's almost thumbs down.

Posted by: maxskibinski

Good review. i was looking at rate plans and such after i heard it was out. then i saw the price tag. so my e398 should be coming shortly