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Review: Kyocera Koi KX2

Form Function - Basics Function - Extras Wrap-up

Body Three S's

Screen

Indoors the screen is bright, but the large pixels and low color depth accentuate the display's low resolution. It looks pixelated, or chunky. Outdoors the screen is washed out to near monochrome, reminiscent of Color GameBoys before the GBA SP came out. To its credit, both the contrast and brightness are fully adjustable on the Koi, which does help to make the screen a bit more pleasant.

Signal

Whether the antenna is down or extended, there are very few times when the Koi does not get a good signal, It does quite well, even in some notorious trouble spots. Often when the screen reads no bars for reception, but still shows a carrier name, you can still make clear calls and use the phone. It would be nice if the signal strength readout reflected this more accurately. It seems the only time the Koi can't make a voice call is when there is no coverage at all, which is not the phone's fault.

Sound

The volume of the Koi is not very loud, until you put it in speakerphone mode (which you can turn on permanently), and then it is practically deafening. When not in speakerphone mode, the ringer is simply not loud enough, even at its highest setting, to be heard. The incredibly strong vibration motor makes up for this shortcoming a bit, as there's no way to miss the phone shaking violently in your pocket. During voice calls, the speaker and microphone are both adequate.

Battery

The battery seems to last about 3 days of normal use. As always, taking and sending pictures as well as other data services drain the battery faster. During periods of our review testing when we were constantly mailing off large pictures, we only got about 2 days of use per charge. Surprisingly, having the screensaver running constantly does not appear to have any significant effect on battery life. Time between charges was the same whether it was on or off.

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Kyocera Koi KX2

Display: 132 x 176 pixels
900 mAh battery

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