The Sanyo SCP3100 is available for purchase with Solo Mobile on the Bell network in Canada and the Sprint PCS network in the US.
The Sanyo SCP3100 is a dual-band, dual-mode phone meaning it will work on both CDMA frequencies (800/1900 MHz CDMA 1X) plus 800 MHz AMPS (analog). This review was based on the performance of the handset running on the Solo Mobile network in Quebec.
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Review written by Dark Scorpion.
Original publication date: 19 March 2007.
Dimensions & Design
The Sanyo SCP3100 measures 84 x 46 x 26mm (3.31 x 1.83 x 1.01 inches) and weighs in at 98 grams (3.5 oz).
Battery Life
According to the documentation, the battery is rated for about six days on standby and up to 3.6 hours of talk time. I nearly reached nine days with reasonable use, and seven with intensive use.
Look and Feel
The phone was just the right size for my hand -- it felt good and the keypad was laid out pretty well. The spring hinge on the clamshell required a bit more effort to open with one hand when compared to other handsets. Also I noted that when you opened the phone with one hand, you often ended up accidentally starting the camera mode.
Sound Quality Earpiece:
I found the earpiece to be crystal clear. The speakerphone was loud and crisp as well. PTT (Push-To-Talk, a.k.a. "10-4") works awesome and sounds just as good as a regular phone call. I found myself using it far more often than I'd like to admit.
Microphone:
Most people told me that it did not sound like I was on a cell phone when I was using this handset, which bodes well for the microphone quality.
Ringer:
There are 30 built-in ringers: 6 "Ring" sounds, 6 "Alert" sounds, and the rest are the usual array of digital song type ringtones. Downloads are available, and the phone is truetone capable. One truetone I downloaded was far too quiet; however, but that might of have been just the recording level, not the fault of the phone itself.
Screen Quality
Main Screen:
I found the main screen so bright and clear that I never had to use the extra backlight feature and I kept the contrast at 50%. The phone does not support video downloads apparently, but you can use pictures taken with the built-in camera as backgrounds. There is an option to have a customizable "banner", and the time and date can be either off, analog (with the date displayed below), or digital (with a single line of text at the top or bottom of the screen).
Exterior Display:
The exterior display is simple, but effective, dark text on a backlit orange background, with options to display the time and date or just the time. The light turns on when a call or other alert is coming in. The backlighting of the secondary LCD may be turned off without opening the flip as follows: if the Sub LCD backlighting is activated, just pressing either the 10-4, camera or side keys will light up the exterior LCD.
Menu system
I have no complaints about the menu system and it seems to do everything it should. The menu system even occasionally has a few ways to do the same thing. I also liked that there was some customizable options, such as there were two "shortcut" buttons that could be assigned to items like the scheduler and calculator (my two choices), but there were other options as well. Some of the other tools, for example, as well as some other choices that would be silly because there already exist single-press methods of accessing them.
Tools: Voice Memo:
This one was not listed under the Tools menu, but was instead accessed through the Sounds menu, or through holding down the "Voice Services Key" next to the volume controls. There really was nothing like having Voice Memo available that quickly, but what makes it even more incredible is the ability to set the title of the memos so it is easy to tell what the memos were for when reviewing them later. The phone can store a total of 3 minutes of memos. The only downside was that you cannot switch to speakerphone mode to capture sounds from the room very well. But there was a potential upside that you can record parts of a phone conversation.
Calculator:
I loved the calculator, especially because of the following features: it allows entry of brackets and can handle order of operations; it has the ability to raise to a power, even a fractional one, allowing for square roots to be calculated (raise to the power of 0.5). This finally makes it so I won't need to bring a calculator with me (unless I need scientific functions).
Alarm:
I really liked this feature and there are a few great aspects of it that I would like to rave about. (1) There was a "quick alarm" feature, which can be set to alert you in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 3 hours. This is great when you don't care to enter in the exact time the alarm should go off. (2) The regular alarms are just like a regular alarm clock in that it will go off at the time you specify, and it can even be set to repeat: daily, Mon-Fri, or weekends. I generally used the next feature more than the Alarm, however...
Scheduler:
I have to admit, my memory is terrible, and I love the notion of having a scheduler that can help me keep track of what I need to do and when, and which can remind me when I should be getting ready to go somewhere, and where I'm going! This really was one of the main features I was looking for in a phone, which makes it extremely disappointing to discover that this one occasionally "forgets" to remind me. In fact, it's starting to forget more often than it remembers. I've just tested it again, and it failed, and I'm saddened. *sigh*
Notepad:
The notepad can store up to 150 characters for notes. These are handy when you are collecting info on something (e.g., price comparisons) because you can see the whole note at once, and because you can add more info to it later (which you can't do with a voice memo).
EZ Tip Calc:
This was a clean interface allows entry of the bill amount, the desired percentage for the tip (dollar value is calculated and displayed immediately), and the number of people to split between. Simple and useful and a good addition to any phone (Note: the default tip percentage is 15%).
World Clock:
A world map or city list allows you to select one of about 60 cities to view the local time. There were no user-definable cities.
Accessories I Have
I use a clip-on US $100 bill cover, which snaps nicely over the factory plate
Other Things That Bugged Me Capitalization Modes:
I was annoyed with the multi-tap text input capitalization modes. I wished that switching to Abc mode would capitalize the first letter, then change to abc mode; switching mode again should put it in Abc mode to capitalize one letter, then switch to abc. Instead, Abc means the first letter is capitalized, the rest are not, and if you switch mode it goes to ABC then abc. I know a few people whose last name starts with McK... and there's so many extra keypresses than what I'm used to from the more intuitive Abc mode I was used to on my old Sanyo, it was almost silly. One press should be like "shift", two successive presses should be like "caps lock", and then you ALWAYS know what mode you're in, rather than this silly switching between three modes. To make matters worse, the indicator for the mode seems to have disappeared on my phone... there used to be a little thing in the corner saying either Abc, abc, or ABC, and it's simply gone now. I'm a little flustered with this, but I can get over it, because I still like this phone.
Auto-Prepend:
When traveling, pretty much everyone in my contact list has become a long-distance call, and so I turned on Auto-Prepend, expecting it to be able to add a 1 to the beginning of each number. I tested it out by trying to call someone on my speed dial -- and lo and behold, the Auto-Prepend added a 1 and made it impossible to call on speed dial! I thought the thing would be smarter than that, and that it would dial the number with a 1 added, not just place it in the input field as I'm typing.
Saving Long Distance Phone Numbers in Contact Book:
For the Call Display to work properly, the phone number can not be stored with the proceeding 1. In order to call Long Distance, the 1 is needed; however, from the Contact List, the only option is to "Call", not "Dial 1+Number". If the number is in the recently dialed or received calls, that option IS there. So, you can "Call" from the Contact List, hit "End", hit "Send" to bring up the recent calls list, select the most recently dialed number, scroll down to "Dial 1+Number", and you're in business. Or do what I did: save every number twice, once with the 1+ and once without, and use the 1+ numbers to the speed dial or voice dial. I found the whole situation to be slightly annoying, but now that I've solved it, I'm no longer bothered by it.
Contact Save Exception:
When modifying contact info, I usually get a "Contact Save Exception" error, which does not seem to actually mean anything. The info was saved just fine, but this error message kept appearing. I've read about how to fix it, but I don't care to reset the phone and re-enter all my contacts. I think I should get a USB connector and backup the info, just in case this error is indicating some actual instability...
Rating
I've got nothing bad to say about the phone, and I would in fact give it 10/10 if it wasn't for the fact that wireless web, 10-4 and picture messaging do not work, but this is a Bell issue and not a phone one, so....
My overall rating: 9/10
According to the documentation, the battery is rated for about six days on standby and up to 3.6 hours of talk time. I nearly reached nine days with reasonable use, and seven with intensive use.
