Introduction
I would have never thought that I will ever again write about a Sagem branded handset, but GSM Takács sent this for review. Okay, I asked for it, as I’ve been curious what kind of phone can be still sold, even though the Sagem brand has been discontinued and disappeared from the mobile phone market.
As we know Sagem doesn’t exist as a stand-alone brand anymore, nowadays they are more into ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) so they work for other manufacturers and network operators. Sony Ericsson’s low-end handsets, for example, are often based on Sagem software, but we can find products of the once-French (nowadays it’s more Chinese) manufacturer at Vodafone as well.
my300c seemed really cute on the pictures and I have again realized how much different is the men’s and women’s heart. The courier brought the package, left it on my table, I went out to the toilet, and by the time I got back there were two girls sitting in my chair, looking amazed at the package. Still, I didn’t have this much success at the football game that evening, but I think that’s quite obvious.
The handset has a trade name as well, it’s called “Butterfly Phone”, British websites mention a price of about 20 pounds. At us it’s available from Vodafone for 45 euros, which is about the double of the British price.
Hirdetés
Exterior
I think even I have to say that it’s cute. Of course the exterior appeals to sentiments, it’s a bit clumsy, it’s cute, it’s rounded, the dark ping and white make the whole thing look like a yoghurt-raspberry ice cream. There are a couple of creepers twisting on the case, there are some butterflies flying around and somehow you still can’t call it a kitsch, but smile on it and say that okay, it’s girly, but it’s still charming.
The ladies have been amazed by it, no matter their age. Oh, how sweet it is, it’s so cute, can I hold it for a second? It’s so lovely and sweet, and then they didn’t care that it’s only a low-end junk, Sagem matched the design perfectly with the taste of the target users, who were even happier when they got to know that they can have the little cutie for only 45 euros. It’s stunning to see again and again that how much the features, the manufacturer, the quality are unimportant if the design makes all these of minor importance.
On top of the shiny plastic cover there are two holes, the round one has the camera inside, the other covers a small light which blinks if something has happened. On the bottom of the phone there is a unique Sagem connector, while on the white back there is the round grid of the speaker. That’s it, we don’t have any more buttons; I have been really missing the volume control keys.
After softly opening the phone we get to see the interior, and Sagem’s designers weren’t overly excited, although they can sometimes create some interesting keypads. The colors are the same, the keyboard is a bit arced, but it’s still okay and I have almost said that it’s rather fine when I saw the blue backlight that doesn’t fit the image like a tuxedo doesn’t fit Rocky.
Interior
After turning on the phone the 128 x 128 pixels large, somewhat blurred display comes alive and we can immediately configure the settings on the first startup. Here we can observe that we have a slideshow wallpaper and the phone can vibrate and ring at the same time.
The main menu has nine icons, the graphics are pretty lame, but there are three color themes (fashion violet, glam rock, cosmic blue), which are very minimal, but at least they change the icons as well. If we don’t leave a menu than the software closes it automatically after two minutes, which is a bit annoying.
The contact list is stored on the internal memory, which is nearly 3 megabytes large. Here we can store quite a lot of contacts, but let’s not forget that this is the same place where the images, sounds and incoming MMS messages are stored. A contact can have a surprisingly large amount of extra information, including three phone numbers, two email addresses, a postal address, workplace, birth date, note, ringtone and a photo.
The small phone can store 100 text messages, text entry is made easier by T9. There is no email client, but we have MMS support and it supports messages of up to 300 KB in size, which is not a common thing in this category. The buttons are soft, they are like rubber, typing is okay, the only problem is that the software sometimes fall behind the fast lady fingers’ speed.
PIM and others
It’s a surprise, but the calendar has month, week and day views as well, which is interesting because such a thing is quite hard to do on such a small display. It’s a habit of Sagem that we can’t store only text notes, but the sound recorder can be used to create them as well, which is a nice feature, it’s a pity that other manufacturers don’t steal this idea more frequently.
The alarm clock can store a single alarm time, but we can set the days when it should go off. We have a countdown timer, a calculator, a to-do list and three game: Air Strike, Midnight Poker and MySudoku, I think two of these are quite self-explanatory, while the first one is a top-down view shooter, it’s quite fun.
The camera has only VGA resolution, I took a couple of pictures just to have them, but it’s obvious that this can be used only for attaching photos to contacts, as neither the size, nor the quality are good enough for anything else. There is no music player and we won’t find a radio either.
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Only GPRS is supported for data transfer, and at local level we have no USB or Bluetooth connection, the handset won’t work as a modem either. The battery is rather good, it can keep the cutie-phone alive for about 3-4 days, which is normal as there is nothing that could really consume power.
Summary? It’s really cute, it’s good for the target users, little girls, or ladies who still feel little girls will be fine with a Sagem my300c and by the time I finished this review it became an end of series product, the final piece of a by-gone era, a memento of a once known manufacturer, a flower on the grave, with butterflies.
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| Sagem my300c |
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Sagem my300c has been provided by GSM Takács. Thanks.
The handset can be purchased online at www.gsmtakacs.hu.
Specifications
| Sagem my300c | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 79 x 42.5 x 21.7 mm | |
| Weight | 79 grams | |
| Available colors | Black, butterfly | |
| Display | ||
| Internal display diagonal | 1.8” | |
| Display resolution | 128 x 128 pixels | |
| Display type | CSTN | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | dynamic | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | 100 / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 2.5 MB | |
| Memory expandability | none | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 900/1800 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / no | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | no / no | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | no / no | |
| WiFi | no | |
| USB | no | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | no / no | |
| GPS receiver | no | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | yes | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | yes | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | no / no | |
| Sound recorder | yes | |
| Alarm clock | yes, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Sagem | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / xHTML | |
| E-mail client | none | |
| Java | yes, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 3 | |
| Currency converter | none | |
| Extra software | - | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | VGA resolution, fixed focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | no | |
| Music player | no | |
| Equalizer | no | |
| FM radio | no | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 220 hours | |
| Talk time | 3 hours | |
| Other | ||
| - | ||
