The Mobile Phone Saving Network

Kyocera Slider Sonic

Wireless/Mobile Phone/Cell Phone

Rated 3.5 out of 5

This sexy slider from Kyocera is designed to be the center of all your good times on the go. With support for Virgin Mobile's "VirginXL" wireless content services, MP3 playback capabilites, a memory card slot, a VGA camera with flash, and a speakerphone, the Slider Sonic is a high end phone for high energy fun.

Design
The Sonic's sliding design allows you to reveal the keypad with a push of the thumb. The phone's 176 x 220 display supports 262,000 colors for stunning image and video viewing. The right side of the phone sports a quick camera button and a protective cover for the microSD/TransFlash memory slot (the phone ships with a 32 MB card). Meanwhile, the phone's VGA (640 x 480) camera unit resides on the rear of the phone, along with an LED flash. Most of the phone's features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button. The top right side of the unit houses an extendable antenna while the phone's charging port is housed on the unit's bottom edge. The phone also features a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets.

Calling Features
The Sonic has all the latest calling features folks have come to expect. The phone comes with built-in Virgin Mobile "superphonic" ringtones plus a vibrating alert. Superphonic ringtones feature real music tracks and more are available via Virgin Mobile's VirginXL service. Ringtones and pictures can be assigned to specific callers so you don't have to look at the phone to know who's calling. The built-in speakerphone makes it easy to talk without having the phone to your ear and voice activated dialing makes calling up to 50 of your friends, family and associates as easy as saying their names. There's also a built-in address book that can store up to 500 contacts for quick and easy management of phone numbers and email addresses.

Messaging, Internet, and Tools
The Sonic covers the messaging basics with support for sending and receiving MMS-based text, picture, and sound messages. AOL instant messaging is also supported. T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

The phone fully supports Virgin Mobile's enhanced wireless content service, VirginXL. With this pay-per-use service you can surf the wireless web or download superphonic ringtones, animations and voices from MTV, Comedy Central and the hottest recording artists. Get content and vote in TV-based polls via the MTV area of your phone, or get jokes and updates from Comedy Central. With the Virgin Mobile Gopher service you'll be connected to real live operators who are ready to help you 24/7. Get driving directions, cross street info, movie times, concert info, sport scores and more. Need to jog your memory? Use Virgin's wacky song ID service. Press the Song ID command, point your Sonic towards a song that's playing in the room, and within minutes a text message appears identifying the song's title. There's even a "Rescue Rings" service to help get you out of sticky dating or other personal situations. And because the Sonic supports video playback, you can download video content from heavy.com made especially for the phone. The list of cool content features goes on and on.

The Sonic ships with a number of handy tools including a calendar, a calculator (plus tip calculator) and an alarm clock.

Imaging and Entertainment
The Sonic's VGA camera makes it easier than ever to snap good pictures and share them with friends via picture messaging. The camera features a built-in flash for getting great shots in low-light situations. The phone boasts custom Virgin Mobile graphics-- screen savers, wallpaper and menu icons-- that let you dress up your phone to suit your personality. More graphics, wallpapers and screensavers are available from the VirginXL service. Demo versions of Bejeweled and Tony Hawk's Underground are included with the phone, and a big selection of additional games can be downloaded from the VirginXL service.

The fun doesn't stop with pretty pictures and gaming, though. The Sonic can record and play back video (max video length is 15 seconds), plus it comes with a nifty MP3 player. Load up your favorite tunes on a memory card (or directly to the phone using an included USB cable) and jam out while you're on the go.

Vital Statistics
The Kyocera Sonic Slider weighs 3.88 ounces and measures 3.89 x 1.85 x 0.9 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 3.8 hours of digital talk time, and up to 153 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the AMPS 850 and CDMA 850/1900 frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
Sonic Slider handset, USB cable, stereo headset/handsfree headset, 32MB miniSD/TransFlash memory card, AC charger, lithium-ion battery, user's manual.

Features of Kyocera Slider Sonic:

1.9" color high quality display (176 x 220)
300k pixel vga camera w/ flash and video record and playback
limit 5 phones per customer.
mp3 phones
music player that supports wma and mp3 audio formats
prepaid phones
transflash removable memory slot

Reviews:

VM SUCKS AND CONTINUE TO SUCK

Rating: 1

VIRGIN MOBILE IS A RIPOFF AND YOU GUYS ARE GETTING RIPOFFED

Rating: 1

For all those who don't think that there VM does not think the Minute 2 Minute plan contains a hidden fee. I'll just have to explain it again.

On the minute 2 minute plan you pay 25 cents for the first 10 minutes and after that it's just 10 cents after. What it means is that if you want 10 cents a minute, you would have to spend $2.50 for the first 10 minutes. The $1.50 is already tacked on for the first 10 minutes assuming the standard price per minute is 10 cents per minute for the, minute 2 minute plan, which explains why it's $2.50 for the first ten minutes and 10 cents after that even though VM doesn't say that there is a fee. Basically you guys are paying 15 cent more for the first 10 minutes (10 cents + 15 additional cents)= 25cents for the first 10 minutes. Any right minded person can look at the plan and see this clearly.

This review is based on average usage of 300 minutes per month.

I hope that all of you guys are reading this because you guys who own a vrigin mobile phone are getting ripoffed big time.
Virgin Mobile really knows how to screw you bigtime. Trust me I did the math and you guys are not getting your minutes worth. All the plans suck because you guys are just paying fees, fees, and more fees. I explain in details why each plan sucks and how they are ripping you off. You'll soon learn why in the end you guys are really paying more than an average plan.

1. The Minute 2 Minute: This plan charges 25 cents for the first 10 minutes and 10 cents after. What you don't know is that there is actually a $1.50 access fee for the first 10 minutes. $1.50 a day for 30 days comes out to be $45 alone for 10 minutes each day.Basically you will have to spend $2.50 first to get 10 cents per minute. Assume that you just use 10 minutes everyday for 30 days. That comes out to $75 for just 300 minutes. Out of that $75 is $45 in hidden access fees.

2. The Day 2 Day plan: This plan charges you 35 cents a day even on days you don't use your phone. That comes out $10.50 a month in access fees.Assume that you use 300 minutes a month. It will actually cost you $40.50 for just 300 minutes. A year will cost you $126 in access fees alone. That's $126 of minutes that you guys have lost by paying the access fees.

3. The Month 2 Month: This plan is the worst. There are 3 levels to this plan but they really know how to screw yo and take your money on this plan. This plan also charges you applicable sales tax too which means more lost airtime for you guys.

Level 1: They start you off with 300 minutes for $30. Here's how they get you. They divide your 300 minutes in daytime minutes and night & weekend minutes. You only get 150 daytime minutes and the other 150 minutes is assigned to night & weekend minutes. How you move on to the next level depends on the the daytime minutes. In order to move to the next level you would have to use up all your daytime minutes which is 150 minutes in this level. For an additional $10 you move on to the next level.

Level 2: This level for $10 more you get 950 minutes. Sounds good doen't it but it's really not. Guess how many daytime minutes you really get only. JUST 100 daytime minutes while the other 850 minutes is assigned to night & weekends. For $40 you only get 250 daytime minutes but 1000 night & weekend minutes. That's just too many minutes assigned to night & weekend. Once you use up that additional 100 minutes in level 2 you move up to level 3 for an additional $10.

level 3: An additional $10 gives you an additional 100 daytime minutes but once you use all your assigned night & weekend minutes it is free after that. Now come on that's just not right. For $50 and applicable sales tax you only get 350 daytime minutes???? You can get more daytime minutes (1000 minutes & free nights & weekends)at t-mobile with a regular plan for about $50 a month. You're getting ripoffed at Virgin Mobile here people.

They also found out how to take your money away at this level too. Once you use all your daytime minutes, you can get more daytime minutes by paying an additional 20 cents per minute. That's just too high of a rate per minute.

4. Inner circle: This plan is really stupid. It allows a person to have unlimited nights & weekends. This plan will cost you $21 a month whether you use your phone or not and all other minutes are 10 cents each. A 70 cent fee is assessed everyday whether you use your phone or not which is $21 a month. Here's how they get you too also. Assume you use 300 minutes a month. That comes out to $51 a month. $21 in access fees and $30 for daytime minutes. THEY ALSO LIMIT YOU TO ONLY 3 NUMBERS. They let you change the numbers though but you can only do it 2 times a month. After 2 times they charge you $3.99 each time.

Virgin mobile also charges you just to look at how much is in you account. Other prepaid companies don't charge you to look at your account.

I've just explained to you why Virgin Mobile has the worst prepaid plan. If you think that you are getting a good deal you should read this again and do some freshing up on your math skills.

Good Phone but make sure its what you want

Rating: 3

I just purchased this phone as a replacement for a stolen 8610. Some things you need to know before you purchase this phone.

It comes with a 32Meg mem card that is ok for about a single album recorded at near CD Quality 64K.

In all truth you probably don't want more than 50 songs or so any way as it does not support sub folders for your music. So all your music must go into the root music directory. You can use playlists to keep track of things but these are stored in local memory and not with the music files so this gets complicated.

I listen to books on tapes and while the music player can play them fine it can not navigate within the tracks very well. You can navigate forward or backward 5 seconds by holding a key entry down for 2 seconds. I calculated it out and it would take almost 20 minutes to navigate to the end of a 1 hour file.

So a major thumbs down for books on tape.

The sound volume on this phone is the loudest I have ever heard. This is plus for a cell phone. Sound quality is very good. I use a $600 Pocket PC for my music and books on tape and while it has a better music player I found that the sound quality on the slider is close. Please note that there is no equalizer so what hear is what you get. The only adjustment is volume.

Camera
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Stills
Stills can be up to 640 x 480 so you don't even get a .5 megapixel shot. This makes the pictures pretty useless for any kind of detail. Stills are stored in local memory not on the memory card so you have to pay to get them off the phone. Also there is not much memory on the phone. My phone is new with only 3 pics and I have less than 15 meg available. One good thing is that the pics can be used as wall paper, screen saver or caller ID. If you are going to use the pictures for this capture them in the lowest resolution to save memory.

Vids
Vids are 176 x 144. The videos are pretty poor quality and not very smooth. They are in 3gp format so If you want to play them on your PC you will need a quicktime player. The good news is that the vids are stored on the memory card so you can pull them off.

Computer Interface
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This is a joke. The included USB cable when connected to your PC is very slow. No where USB2.0 speed. Also when plugged into the computer the phone is locked up. When you remove the connector you must power down the phone to recover.

I found it much easier to just remove the transflash and plug it into the included adapter for use in a normal memory card reader.

Another downside of the USB connector is that you cant charge your phone from the USB. Even my Pocket PC can fast charge its much larger battery from the USB.

It is also important that you understand that the USB only gives you access to the transflash card and not anything else. Just Your music (Your own music) and Vids.

You don't have access to ringtones, games, pictures, sounds or anything other than your vids and music. No you cant use your own music files as ring tones. No tool or hack is going to allow this.

Major Thumbs Down on the USB interface.

Games
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The slider comes with three games. However these are demos only. If you want a real game you have to purchase it. All the games will cost you $5.99 each unless you become member of the players club then select games (about 5%) can be downloaded free for a few $ a month. You can play these games as long as you are a member.

One of the reasons I purchased this phone was the games so I am a bit disappointed in what is available and what it came with.

Tools
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This is where I think the phone does well it comes with a calculator, tip calculator, world clock, scheduler, alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, voice memo. Very cool apps.

Form Factor and Interface
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The phone is pretty big compared to a phone like the 8610 or some of the more modern phones. Some of the buttons are pretty clumsy and easy to hit. The volume is the worst. You will have to use the key lock feature. I never had to use that on my 8610.

Final thoughts

I purchased this phone because my 8610 was stolen. I think I will probably trade this phone with my daughters 8610. I think she may enjoy it more than I do.

By Kyocera