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Review Sagem my-X5

Standard kit

Phone
Charger
Portable handsfree
Manual

Until recently it was impossible to find low-end phones made by Sagem in the Russian market. Now the situation is changing. Sagem X5 influenced this situation a little bit. It is a model of the middle class, but originally it was positioned as a top model. First time the phone was unveiled in the beginning of 2002, but it became available only in the end of the year. This delay affects the price of the phone and it was decreased. But all functions, developed by the engineers remain attractive even today. Originally the handset was positioned as a business phone. So, it has a classical design. The phone is produced in several colors, all of them are quiet. Sagem applies interchangeable covers almost in all models. This phone is not an exception. But the case is reliable; it doesn’t scratch and has no backlash.

The phone has the following dimensions: 105õ46õ20 mm. It is handy and it is possible to wear it in the pocket of the shirt and trousers. The phone weighs 92 grams. The weight is comparable with the weight of the phones of other manufacturers. Lithium-ion battery of 720 mAh capacity is located under the rear cover of the phone. According to the manufacturer, it could provide up to 240 hours of standby time and up to 240 minutes of talk time. In reality the phone worked about 3 days in case of 40 minutes of talking and 10 minutes of using other functions. If you talk about 15-20 minutes and has the same time of using applications, you could use the phone about 4 days. Time of full re-charging is about 1.5 hours.

The screen of the phone could display up to 256 colors, about 3 text lines and 2 service lines can be contained on the screen. There is a possibility to change a font size, but number of available text lines doesn’t depend on the font size. The quality of the picture is middling, but don’t forget that it is one of the first phones with a color screen. Sagem myX5 can be compared with Ericsson T68, Siemens S55 by the screen quality. As for me the picture on the display of X5 looks better than on Siemens S55. The information is badly visible on the display in a sunny day.

All keys are plastic; they have average size and rather convenient. The 4-directional navigation key is very comfortable, you can easily move through the menu using this key. Send key is necessary to activate a speakerphone function during the talk. It is also used when you switch on the phone. To turn off the phone, use reject key.

IrDA is positioned on the left-hand side of the phone, system connector is situated on the bottom.

Menu and capabilities of the phone

Sagem my-x5 has an original menu structure. A large animated icon represents all menus; row of icons of the main menu is placed at the left. When you scrolling the icons, you always notice two near by icons. It is rather convenient. Engineers decided that the user should have a possibility to assign the most frequently used functions to soft-keys. To do it, just choose the necessary function from the list of pre-default items.

Let’s talk about the most interesting capabilities of the phone. First of all, phonebook attracted our attention. It is possible to store up to 300 entries there. Up to 3 phone numbers, e-mail address, name and surname can be added to one entry. Caller groups are available. One can assign special ringing tones to each group. It is also possible to associate pictures to the names in the phonebook, in this case you will see not only a phone number, but also a selected picture while incoming call. There are many pre-installed pictures in the phone. Extra pictures, for example, photos of real people, your friends can be downloaded from PC. If you don’t have IrDA on PC you could use wap-browser and download pictures from the official site of manufacturer - www.planetsagem.com.

Messages. You can create as many own templates as you want. The phone supports not only SMS, but EMS and MMS service as well. The function has been checked up in several networks at once and has showed it quite efficient. One of the advantages of the phone is the opportunity to create the MMS-messages containing several pages (slides). Similar realization can be met in devices from Sony Ericsson.

Multimedia. There are folders with all your photos, pictures, sounds in this menu. Unfortunately, the navigation between photos is complicated; there is no preliminary viewing as thumbnails, only the names of files. It is necessary to scroll over photos one by one, the same happens when you choose a photo for name in the phonebook. It is inconvenient.

All melodies and pictures received through WAP or IR-port are located in the corresponding folders right now.

WAP. Wap-browser in version 1.2.1 is installed in the phone. As a whole there is no anything unusual.

Games. There are two games in phone: Picture Puzzle, in which it is necessary to collect the picture from small parts, moving them, and also MegaBox Conquest. In the second game you conquer the game field step by step and aspire not to get under the flying washers. Similar games have many manufacturers. The device supports In-Fusio game platform. If you operator supports this function too, you can load new games. In Russia there is no such service by the moment, I doubt whether someone puts it into operation in the near future. In short, it is a pity, but the set of the built-in games remains the same.

Accessories. The calculator is usual; the currency converter is also standard. Both draw attention by graphic appearance.

The alarm clock alerts only once. It is adjustable for certain time, there are no repetitions.

Settings. There are plenty of options related to phone, adjustments of the screen, and besides, adjustments of ring tones and alert types in this menu. It is possible to set not simply mixed alert type (vibration and melody simultaneously), but to specify, that first works only the vibration alert and then the melody.

Impressions

The phone has high reception quality. There are no problems with this character. All polyphonic melodies sound nice and loud. The manufacturer states that the phone has Hi-Fi melodies. It is only inside marking of Sagem; in reality the company means just usual 16-tones polyphonic melodies. It is possible to download designed melodies in WAV, midi format. Totally one can download up to 80 polyphonic melodies (30 of them have been pre-installed). Vibrating alert is average. It is felt in a pocket, not in a bag.

We can compare this phone with such popular phone as Sony Ericsson T68i. The main differences are lack of bluetooth and GSM 1900 support. Taking into account that the phone has a lesser price (about 150 USD), it is a reasonable choice in its class. Sagem my-X5 is not a niche solution, but it is not a mass product as well.

Examples of ringing tones (mp3, 386 Kb)

Eldar Murtazin ([email protected])
Translated by Maria Sennikova ([email protected])

Published — 17 June 2003

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