Panasonic VS6 Review
By Laurence Keir
Main Menu
The main menu is fast and easy to use, a standard 12 icon desktop, no fancy animations so no lag. You can actually replace the icons with any image you like. I make a set myself, nice mod for it. You get three themes, blue, green and black. black is nicest. The icons have small text below them, when highlighted it is much larger.
On standby you can set the 4 way pad to 4 shortcuts, but the softkeys are set to SMS and WAP.
You can move the operator logo from middle to uppper or lower left, and adjust the backlight time to 10, 30 or 60 seconds.
Connectivity options are Bluetooth, Infrared, US and GPRS.
You can set ringtones, message tone, warning tone, startup and shut down tones. These can be mp3.
Messaging
Messaging is very like SE, T9 allows new words and will re-arrange word order so most popular is first. It remembers the capitals in things like :- D which the 6680 won't. If you are reading an SMS you can press right to read previous messages. The size of the screen means you can read a whole SMS without scrolling, but it allows multiple messages of up to 1530 characters!
MMS is simple, when you start a new one you get slide one and the option to add picture, text, sound or video. It resizes images automactucally (unlike the V635) and once some content is added you can add another slide.
The archive is split into MMS and SMS, and each has Draft, Sent and Outbox folders. There is 30MB user memory, space for 500 SMS and 2MB for MMS.
File Manager
The file manager is My Media, this menu has Pictures, Sounds, Videos, Games, Text Templates and Memory Status.
Memory status is done as a series of progress bars, one for each memory folder, and a total at the bottom, they have a % at the end. Pictures and videos have three parts, stored, download and take new.
You can create subfolders and move files around them. You can have thumbnails as a grid or a list, the list shows date and filename next to the image.
You can resize images to VGA, 16x120, main display and icon size. You have basic editing, add frame, trimming and clear shadow. You can't view images in any kind of full screen mode, though you can zoom in and pan around.
Trimming is a freehand crop, very nice. not sure what remove shadow does, and my Bluetooth has decided to stop working today so i cant send any pics to check properly.
Video player is basic, no fast forward or rewind, just play and pause.
Calander
The calander has an option of weekly or monthly views, calander entries have these fields:
Note
Start time/date
End time/date
Repeat: Once, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. You can set number of repeats.
Reminder from 0 to 90min before
Location
Category: Appointment, Business, Education, Public holiday, Meeting, Misc, Personal, Phone call, Hospital, Special occasion, travel, vacation, Birthday, Dinner, Driving, Exercise, Anniversary, Hobby, Date, Party, Shopping, School, business trip and no category (lol)
Calander Tone
Volume
Ilumination: job(blue), private(yellow), anniversary(purple) and off.
It save 100 tasks. You have a Go To date option, memory status, can set the week start day and set a holiday day.
Camera
It's great, 2mp with Macro switch.
All the normal featurse,
resolutions of 1600x1200, 1280x960, 640x480, 320x240, 160x120 and Main Display (240x320).
Image quality superfine, fine and normal.
night mode, multishot, effect (sepia, monochrome and negative)
self timer of 5 or 10s
shutter sound ( cant be silenced)
video recording.
It doesnt tell you how many images are left on screen, you have to check in a menu. You have night mode and exposure compensation, most options can be set by simply pressing the number keys.
Picture quality is excellent for a phone at this price, it's good for a phone at any price! Macro is great. Video is average, 176x144, MMS or long recording.
Calling
Call quality is fine, it sounds clearer than my 6680, not as loud though. Signal is always good, not had any reception problems yet. If you are dialling out the left softkey activiate speaker, and can be done beofer the call is answered.
Call lists are accessed by pressing the green button, left and right switch between dialled missedand answered calls, all with time nad date, no duration though.
The speaker is not very loud, and if you like loud ringtones you really need a midi, as mp3s are quiet. I always have my phone on silent, and the virating alert is powerful enough for most. If you have it in a room on silent the light on top is very noticable. The light can be set different colours for contacts.
Phonebook
Phonebook is good, when browsing contacts it shows the picture, name and default number for the highlighted one at the top of the screen. Contacts can have First Name, Last Name, Mobile, home, Work, Mobile, Personal, Work emails, Birthday, Postal address, Note, Ringtone, Message alert, Illuminations, Picture and group.
All the other contact options seem standard, copy to and from sim, sync, groups, add, edit etc.
Misc
It has the normal Alarm, calculator and sound recorder, games etc.
The alarms are good, daily or weekly, set time, tone, picture, light etc and choose on or off, does up to 8 at a time.
Games
You get a full version of Sonic The Hedghog on it, which is great, runs smoothly with no lag and a football game which may indicate 3d supportI've had no software problems at all, no hangs, resets or anything. Jbenchmark is quite a bit faster than the S700i.
Other Impressions
It feels nice and solid, the bettery life was a bit poor for a few days, but now it's lasting ages. I can't actually remember when I last charged it, it's at least 4 days. I haven't used it thatheavily though as I've been playing with my 6680 I got on last Wednesday. It's poop in comparison to the VS6.
The auto opening flip is cool, just press the button on the hinge and it snaps open very nicely, makes a nice solid click too. The keypad is very nice, well spaced, the keys are slightly recessed, but easy to feel and use. A very responsive click when you press them, very accurate feeling. Texting is a breeze.
It's thin and feels good in the hand, and when you do open it you see that amazing screen, It really is stunning, and it the best on the UK market, bar none. Put anything next to it and you can really tell. It's very very bright too, 300Cd/m, I find that half brightness is easily enough. It's very easy to see outside.
Conclusion
I really highly recommend this phone, for £99.99 on vodafone PAYG you cannot beat it. The hardware is unbeatable, in the screen's case at any price at the moment, and the UI is pretty powerful and easy to use.
The only downpoints are no external screen, no expandable memory and, for me, no full screen image viewing.
If you are looking for a prepay phone aroudn £100 get this! Don't even look at anything else!
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