There was nothing particularly striking with this unit the moment I first saw it, not the shape, not the color. But when I held it in my hand, it was oh so light I though I was holding a toy. At 76 grams, I hardly felt it inside my pocket.
This was the first time I’ve used a mobile from Panasonic so I was pretty excited about using the phone. The first thing I did after inserting my SIM and the battery was to charge the phone. I have to admit the phone’s charger port was different from all the other phones I’m familiar with so it took me some time to figure out how to insert the charger into the phone. You should have seen me trying to insert the charger in different directions. I was holding the phone and the charger so close to my eyes and when I couldn’t make heads or tails on which direction charger to insert the charger, I had to take off my eyeglasses and held them closer to my eyes.
After successfully inserting the charger, I lost no time plugging it and turned on the unit at once. My husband was more excited than I was to look at the phone but I told him to wait because how could he use something that’s written in Chinese characters. Yup, the unit’s default language was in Chinese and I was just shaking my head in amusement while pressing the navigation keys not knowing what I was doing.
So I went over the contents of the box that came with the unit and was relieved to find a manual. I quickly scanned the contents and looked for the phone’s settings. Having found it, I went back to the phone and clicked on the Settings icon on the main menu and just scrolled down the Chinese menu entirely depending on the manual. And lo and behold, there was a word I quickly recognized –English. I scrolled down to the word and pushed the left key just below the display hoping it was the “Select” key. Then the Chinese characters quickly changed into something I could finally understand.
The SC3 is a camera phone but with only a VGA resolution, it’s not really something to rave about. Even with a 4x zoom, you’d need ample lighting to get bright pictures.
It has an IR port, is WAP-enabled, and has an optional data cable for PC transfer which you have to purchase separately.
In terms of functions, the SC3 is no different from other units or brands. It can send and receive MMS, e-mail and SMS. The phone is fairly easy to use with very helpful icons both on the menu and on the keypads. However, the main menu defaults to the Browser, which I find disconcerting because I wouldn’t want to use a cellphone primarily to browse. There is, on the other hand, the right short cut key to go to the Messages menu. But for making a call, you have to navigate through several menus before finally making a call.
As if to make up for this shortcoming, Panasonic put in a lot of short cuts. For instance, locking the phone can be configured in the Security settings such that you don’t have to push a button or two to lock the keypads. Likewise with answering a call or retrieving a message. The phone can be configured to “any answer key” such that pressing any key on the keypad will automatically connect you to the caller. And even when the keypad is locked, you an easily view the message, even reply to it without unlocking the pads. Once the reply has been sent or the message was deleted, the keypads are automatically locked again.
But I couldn’t say the same with the way the submenus were designed especially with the Messages function. The “delete” function is four scrolls down the Options submenu and because the screen only shows the first three, I thought it wasn’t there at all. Good thing I had the patience to scroll down the list of menus otherwise I would have filled my inbox. When replying to a message, the first option is set to Send and Save, so I need to scroll down to just send the message without saving it. There’s just too much thumb work.
Speaking of thumb work, the keypads are not exactly ergonomic. They’re so small and so close together I needed to use the tip of my thumb to press the keys. A note to would-be users, don’ wear long fingernails.
But there is one thing pretty neat about the phone: the light effects. There’s this thin strip of light source between the display and the keypads that glows with different colors depending on the mode. It also serves as an indicator for the kind of emotion present in a message with an emoticon in it. Definitely cute. Depending on the emoticon in the message received or typed, the light indicator will flash varying colors and patterns. And this seems to be the saving grace of the phone.
But personally, I’d have second thoughts owning a phone like this.
