Product Review: Sanyo Sprint PCS Vision Picture Phone PM-8200

BY BENZY FERNANDO

INTRODUCTION
According to the CTIA (The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association), there were about 163,320,778 current wireless subscribers in the US as of May 05, 2004. Cell phones are getting smarter and better every day. Now they don't just make and receive calls, they can surf the Web, play tunes and games and organize your digital lifestyle. If you are looking for a cell phone that can be used as an excellent communication tool as well as an occasional entertainment tool, then the Sanyo Sprint PCS Vision Picture Phone PM-8200 is for you.

The Sanyo PM-8200 is an upgrade from the popular Sprint PCS Vision Picture Phone SCP-8100. The enhancements include advanced camera functionality with improved resolution, built-in flash and nationwide Sprint walkie-talkie service with a built-in speakerphone.

Since most of us have or have used cell phones a lot, I will only explain the more important features worth mentioning about on this Sanyo PM-8200.

DESIGN & FEATURES
The phone I was able to get my hands on was a silver Sanyo PM-8200, which has a sleek design, is compact in size (3.34�*1.85�*1.02�) and weighs about 3.6 oz. It fits well in your palm. It has two displays -- a 1" external color LCD and a vivid 1.8" internal main LCD; both are TFT (Thin Film Transistor) and support 65,536 colors. The internal display has a very crisp resolution which makes it visible under all lighting conditions. I always had issues with some of the latest cell phones such as Sony Ericsson�s T616, where the display cannot be read under low or even bright lighting conditions, but Sanyo PM-8200 is a winner. Sanyo PM-8200 comes in three colors: Red, Silver and Midnight Blue.

I am always a big fan of one-touch menu options; Sanyo has done a great deal in achieving this. It offers a four-way toggle with a Menu OK button in its center, and above this there are two navigation soft keys. The four-way toggle button gives one-click access to the most frequently used buttons such as phone book, settings, messaging and downloads. These buttons are very responsive, bigger and far apart so anyone who accidentally types the wrong button will like this design.

The Sanyo PM-8200 is advertised as �a camera phone with more...� and it lives up to its claim. The integrated VGA (640x480) camera operates with just a click of a button. It has a built-in flash -- a rare feature on camera phones -- that has four settings including flash off, on this shot, on always and auto mode. When taking photos, you can choose among three picture resolutions (high, medium, low), fun frames, which include multiple shots (up to eight shots) and color tone. You can also add 10-second voice attachments with the picture attachments,  and choose from four shutter sound options which include recording your own sound as well. The camera also has a self-timer (five sec, 10 sec) and a digital zoom.

We were able to take pictures and were able to send those to an Outlook address without any problem. The pictures came out excellent with low light conditions with the help of the auto flash. The only problem we encountered was that we could not receive pictures sent from the Outlook client. After reading the manual, we could not come up with any answers. Sanyo�s Web site states that pictures can be shared between PCS Vision phones and most e-mail addresses, but did not elaborate on how we can receive pictures from an Outlook client. There should be a mechanism similar to Blackberry handhelds, where you can have Blackberry desktop redirector installed on your PC. This enables Outlook to send picture e-mails to the Blackberry device. I would like to see more instructions on this so-called �Picture eMail� feature.

 I should add one thing: I haven�t seen any cell phones on the market that have as many camera features as the Sanyo PM-8200.

One of the features I like about this Sanyo PM-8200 is the built-in high quality speaker phone. Open or closed, this hands-free operation is very valuable if you are a person who uses the cell phone mostly while driving. You can receive calls just by clicking on the dedicated button on the side without opening the phone (of course the phone has to be on!). We were able to receive calls over the speaker phone just by pressing the button on the side and the sound quality was excellent. But when we increased the speaker volume, we got an occasional echo.

When it comes to messaging, the Sanyo PM-8200 has all the bells and whistles of other cell phones on the market. Sanyo has standard input modes, including predictive text entry (T9Word). As it was my first time using the T9Word input mode feature, I should say it was a pleasant experience -- I did not have any problem typing an e-mail message.

In addition to all of the above features, the Sanyo PM-8200 also has a WAP 2.0 Web browser -- with one-touch access to the Web, 32-chord polyphonic ring tones & melodies, call screening/answering machine mode, an alarm clock, a calculator, a world clock, a digital memo recorder up to 18 seconds in length, a personal information manager in which you can store 300 contact records, an event calendar, a to-do list, a two-way SMS (Short Messaging System), e-mail and voice mail.

CONCLUSION
All in all, the Sanyo PM-8200 is a phone that has all the features of a standard cell phone with a built-in camera and an advanced flash and options to control them. It offers an excellent speaker phone, which provides hands-free operation and buttons that can be accessed easily. I would say the Sanyo PM-8200 is a winner in its class.

Benzy Fernando is a TMCnet Technology Editor. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].