vB Easy Archive - My review of the firefly phone

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My review of the firefly phone
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Posted by: mamosley

Ok, I know the phone isnt available thru cingular yet, but I bought one at Target for $100. It comes with 30 prepaid minutes thru firefly, of course I stuck the sim for my kids line in it. The phone isnt locked, big plus. I dont know what the cingular packaging will look like, but from target it comes in a plastic jar, you know, like the kind you used to catch fireflies in when you were a kid. My kids are 4, 6, and 8 yrs old respectively. My 8 year can handle any cell I have, the 6 yr old can handle the non smartphones/palm phones. The phone is about 3 1/2 inches long 1 3/4 wide and 3/4 inch in depth, so its pretty small. The buttons are all easy to reach for little fingers. I asked my 4 year old to try and and call me (daddy), of course she went right to the daddy button then put the phone for her ear, after a couple of seconds with out the phone doing anything she looked at the phone again and pushed the green phone (dial) button with out any prompting to make the call. She figured out how to hang it up with out any problems. I asked her to call mommy and she didnt even wait to hit the talk button, so she figured it out pretty quickly. Now of course she cant read yet so she thinks the "library" button which is the phone book button is to call grandma since that is the first number in the phone book. You can customize the lcd back ground light color a different color for the mommy, daddy and phonebook entries. I set it up when I call the phone lights up red, when mommy calls it lights up blue, and green for anybody else in the phone book. You can also change the ring tones according to those 3 slots also. You cant set any per phone book entry settings, they all share the same setting. In my personal opinion the font on the screen could be a little larger but it is still legible. May be a problem to read for older people. Navigating the menus takes just a few moments to get used to. My only gripe with the menue is that you have to cycle all the way thru to exit out, but that only makes since because the send button goes up or left thru the menue and the end button goes down or right and the phonebook button is the select or o.k. function. I like the call screening function. Ofcourse the phone can only dial what is in the phonebook, but you can also restrict incoming calls to numbers that are entered in the phone book also. If you have another phone that you can store names and contacts on the sim card I recommend doing that then put the sim in the firefly phone. It is kind of tedious entering contacts on the phone and it has an option to add from sim. There is not a way to connect the phone to or sync with a computer for phone book entries. The phone to my suprise has very good reception despite the lack of external antenna. I will probably also get the glow in the dark skin for the phone as the plastic it is made of doesnt seem like it is all that durable. Other than the size of font on the display and tedium of entering numbers into the phone book my only other con so far is that I think the ringer could be quite a bit louder as I can see this phone being lost very easily because of its size and kind of hard to find. Thats all for now.

www.fireflymobile.com and if I'm not mistaken, their coverage map sure looks a lot like tmobiles home coverage area.

Posted by: cgd

Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about getting one for my almost-9-year-old.