Sagem 3G my600v : Bright, light, all right
Bright, light, and all right. In a nutshell that's what we think of Sagem’s my600v.
It is brightly coloured and attractively so. An oystershell white on the back and framing the front is not unpleasant to look at while a strip of deep dark red all around the edges adds a flash of brilliance.
It is light. Just 99g of weight for your pocket or bag. And it takes the candy bar idea quite literally with dimensions of 110mm tall, 48mm wide and 16mm thick ensuring that it fits very well in the hand when you are making calls.
It is all right. The features are not, by any stretch of the imagination, leading the way. And it would be fair to say at the outset that if you are looking for something outstanding there is only one aspect in which this handset fits the bill. Its battery life is amazing. Sagem says it is good for up to six hours of music listening from a single charge. When we tested this by asking the phone to play music non-stop it gave us almost 17 hours of play.
During this test the screen backlight was set to time out at 120 seconds, so little power was used keeping the screen running, but even taking that into account this battery life seems remarkable.
We should say at this point that the Sagem my600v is exclusive to Vodafone. It is available as a Pay As You Talk handset and if you buy it online it will cost you £63. In store it is £70.
The Sagem my600v is a 3G handset, but this is one of the aspects in which it is ‘all right’ rather than wonderful. There's no front facing camera so you can't make two way video calls in which you can see the person you are calling and they can see you. There is a back mounted camera and you can use this to either show the person you are calling what you can see, or look into the camera and show them yourself. This one way video calling is not really ideal, though we suppose it is better than nothing.
That camera is another aspect of this handset which is below par. It shoots both stills and video and has several filters: normal, grey scale, sepia, negative and solarization. It also has automatic settings for a range of lighting conditions: normal, backlight, tungsten, night, sunny and cloudy. There is a timer which can be set at five seconds 10 seconds or 15 seconds.
But there the goodness stops. The lens is not accompanied by a self-portrait mirror or flash unit, and it shoots stills at just two resolutions - 320 x 240 and 640 x 480. A handset with a camera whose maximum image resolution is VGA is definitely not at the cutting edge.
There are a few other things which push the Sagem my600v towards average. The screen resolution at 176 x 220 pixels is not great though it displays 262,000 colours and is pretty clear and sharp.
If you want to listen to music playback you will need to invest in a headset either Bluetooth or wired as none comes with the phone. And music fans will probably want to buy a miniSD card or two in order to boost the internal memory. Although our handset had more than 16MB free, only 8MB is available for music storage. The good news is that memory cards are easily swapped as their slot is on the left edge of the handset, and they are protected by a cover.
There are more plus points to be had too. The built-in applications are pretty good with a calendar, to do list, alarm clock, stopwatch, count down timer, calculator and voice recorder all included. You can download some software that lets you synchronise your phone with a PC, and you can use the phone as a modem with another device for example a laptop computer.
We also like the general ergonomics of use. The front facing buttons are all large and easy to use. The navigation button is big and square and dips down towards its central silver select button. To its left and right the soft menu keys are again a healthy size, and a blue backlight really helps with using the phone in darker conditions. If you have trouble with phones that have tiny buttons, then this should all be quite a refreshing change.
There are just two side buttons, both on the right side. One is a volume rocker and the other launches the camera. You can use it to take a picture too, though the select button inside the navigation key is more convenient.
Verdict
If you want 3G on pay as you talk then this handset is certainly attractively
priced. If you hanker for something which is easy to use and not oversized
for your pocket then this handset may catch your attention. If you want something
which will play your music all day and still allow you to make some phone
calls then this handset should be on your shortlist.
But it is by no means going to please everybody, and the camera is a real let down. Much more so than the lack of two-way video calling which some people may be easily able to live without.
This review covers the above mobile phone only and does not address the performance of any 3G Network. The score is based on a 3G mobile phone checklist.
Copyright : You are advised that this material is the copyright of www.3G.co.uk and is our own personal view only. (C) All rights reserved 2005. Whist every care has been taken in the preparation of this review, the author nor 3G.co.uk cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or authenticity of the information it contains, or consequence arising from it.
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