ZTE Z222 / Z223
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cheap phone;semi-durable,but lacking in soft/hard design
i use this phone for unlimited talk and text plus mms.
got it because they were out of the $10 gophone sim kit and this was $14 with sim.
its good if your not into texting much,
not inherently because of the abc123 keyboard
but the fact that lets say you wanted to type the word 'ghetto' ..
you have to hit the 4 for g then hit the right dpad button to move the cursor then 4 twice for h then the right dpad button , etc--thats all dandy
.. the problem is once the cursor gets to the end of the text and you hit it again it goes all the way to the beginning(instead of stopping at the end of the message)
making it annoying for someone who txts faster than the phone can keep up with
in my experience with basic flip phones the majority of them dont do what this one does..they stop at the end..making it easy to very quickly type 'pqrs' or 'def' (one thumb pressing on the right or down dpad the other pressing the letter buttons)
also-- dont expect a timestamp on txt messages older than the day that you're in--this is another feature it lacks
and if you want to zoom in on a picture in the photo viewer you can only zoom straight in
call quality and signal strength have been great though; call waiting's good; mms sends pretty quick; alarms pretty loud; micro-usb port is durable
battery lasts like 2 days if you use it frequently 3 if you dont--phone charges quick(i use a microusb cable plugged into a 1 amp output wall charger)
i never used the supplied charger
hmm what else--i've had it fly out of my tool belt numerous times from 4-7 feet onto cement--camera's still good --if you take pics of txt ,a sign, or a page( like size 20pt tnr)you can still read the text in the pic..could probably go smaller with settings; the useless front lcd finally broke though(lol)
my previous phone was nokia 6085-- had it for about a year-- had a better feel--better build quality--more
complex GUI than this but much more user friendly--albeit $5 more lol
overall, does what its sposed to
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Would have been great in 2003
This is a very, very cheap phone. Locked to ATT it cost $15, which is only slightly overpriced. The phone's design is characterized by all the thoughtful touches and quality you'd expect if it had been designed by ZTE's intern late on a Friday afternoon.
In your hand the phone has a particular feel of cheapness, brought to life by the crude injection molded plastic that also defines most of the toys in Walmart's toy department. The back has little ribs that seem like they should improve grip, but are actually slipperier than the shiny top face of the handset that acts like a magnet for grease and grime.
The front also has a "camera," such as it is, that would have been state-of-the arts on a webcam in about 2002. Below that there's a low-res black and white LCD. It's unclear why ZTE installed this LCD. It is useless. When the phone is closed the LCD is blank. When the phone is open (and thus you cannot see the front LCD because you're not an idiot and aren't holding it with the main screen/keypad facing away from you) the front display shows the ATT logo, then when you close the phone it shows the time for about three seconds. Now since the front LCD is a black and white LCD it would be entirely readable without a backlight and could always show the time without noticeable battery drain, casting some faint purpose on its existence. Unfortunately the intern had a party to go to and cut out a few minutes early.
The pathetic nature of the phone is brought home when you attempt to use it. The main screen is middle of the road for what you would have found in 2006. It displays things, which is about as much as you'd hope for. The buttons have the tactile feedback of the buttons on a typical microwave oven, but unlike when you push buttons on a microwave the phone's buttons take about 1/2 a second to respond, which is just long enough to make you wonder if you really pushed one. They're not perfectly flat, but might as well be for as hard as it is...
