Most recent addition (1 Jan 09): I still have this phone. Yes, I do! But it is no longer my primary phone. Times have moved along and this little baby is a now just a good backup unit to carry due to its small size.
Original Review:
I purchased this CDMA phone for Rs. 2400, and I feel this is a very good price for the amount of features this phone packs in. The phone was a replacement for my old LG RD2030 phone that I got from Reliance over 2 years ago. There were numerous things that I hated about that phone so much. I’m sure you know this phone - after all only about 10 million other people were using it.
Reliance Web-World was selling the SCH-N380 phone for Rs. 2500 and they would not take my old LG for any replacement value. However, I was lucky to find this shop near Lokhandwala that sold me the phone for Rs. 100 less than Reliance and gave me Rs. 300 for my old beat-up LG.
Some of the features that I liked have been listed up ahead. These were in comparison with the old LG phone. But first here is an explanation of some nifty features.
Quick SMS: This is a really nice feature that you can use in an emergency, you can send a preset message to party(ies) that you specify by simply pressing the C key four times from idle screen! Sadly you can preset only 1 fixed message. I use it to dash off a note to my wife asking her to call me up. You’ll probably guess that I use the feature quite frequently :-)
Memo Pad: It allows you to write down memos about anything you need to remember. Limited to 10 memos.
Task List: It allows you to enter up a list of tasks to be done and assign a deadline to each task. Limited to 9 tasks.
Quick Menu: You can set up a menu of your own using your favorite menu items, which can then be accessed by specific number keys. Simply press any number and then the Left soft-key (Jump)
Multiple choices for keyed in number: Key in a number (say 1030) - next you can click on the Navigation Keys to select what you’d like to do with that number! Click the ‘Up’ button if this is a phone number where you want to send an SMS Click the ‘Left’ button if this is a time that you want to set an alarm. Click the ‘Right’ button if you want to find a match for this number in your phone book. Click the ‘Down’ button if you want to use this number in a calculation using the calculator.
Plus Points of this phone that I really liked:
Sleek, thin design – Just 13.1 mm in thickness.
No external antenna
2000 numbers Phone book!
Stop watch
Multiple choices for keyed in number
Quick Menu
Quick SMS
Memo pad
Task List
Minus points:
Available in only 1 color – Silver
R World not supported
R Connect not supported
The games really suck. 3 games but they all suck!
The procedure of sending a SMS is too long. After you enter your message, it is a daunting task of going through the menus to find the recipient in the phone book.
Since there isn’t a SIM card in the phone, there was no means to tranfer the phone book from my old LG phone to this one. I had to key in 200 entries! 26 Sep 2005
(Addition)
I just wanted to add something that I’ve started to hate about this phone. Whenever you get an incoming call, the screen first flashes the area (Mumbai) for about 2 or 3 seconds. The issue is that I’ve not found a way to disable this anywhere in the settings. Everytime somebody calls, you have to wait to find out who the caller is. Truly annoying if you are an impatient person like me who needs to know within 1 second whether you want to answer the call or not. :-( I still feel that it is a good phone though.
I purchased the headphone accessory for Rs. 175 today, and it sounds really good. I think I may buy the PC link cable next - I’ve heard that it sells for about Rs 350. This could be a good way to save all the data on my computer so that I can possibly transfer it the next phone when the time comes.