Audiovox PPC 4100 / SP230
Average Ratings
Best phone I ever had!
No bluetooth and a not a installed camera but that was okay. I never got dis-connected and it was pretty cheap! I have to say it is SWEAT!
Thanks,
Alex
4100 problems
I am looking for a phone that will allow me to access all sites on the Internet. I used a 4100 at the AT&T store for several hours. Here are my observations. The phone like all the others I have tried will not load a full page that has lots of pictures (it will fail 100% of the time on an Ebay search result page). I talked with an Audiovox customer service rep and was told the following: There will be a patch for the phone that should fix the not displaying a busy web page problem. They expect it within a week or so. He also said that there were many other problems with the browser.
The voice dialer is very neat. Several of the reviews of the phone say it does not have a voice dialer function but I used it and it worked just fine.
Bill
New Phone with Windows CE
This is the worst phone I have had and in two days OS crashed about 5 times and all data was lost. Windows CE has all the good stuff on this phone but it is nor relaiable.
A little Powerhouse, Super PDA, decent phone,
I have used and loved this Converged Phone/PDA for over a year. I bought mine second hand replacing a Simens SX-56. Even now you can pick up this little powerhouse with the Intel 400Mhz Xscale processor, for under $150 used. I will approach my review from the PPC point of view.
I have used mine in tandem with a 2G SD card. I can rip 8 movies from DVD to watch, or about 16 one hour TV shows. I have used this on trips with an adapter to play in stereo sound in the car. For music I can store plenty of music. With the on-board speaker it is nice for excellent portable sound or with speakers. There is even an headset adapter for changing tracks (sound, vol, pause, kind of like some MP3 players)
I can also store and play photos and videos from our Digital camera, it nice to have as a little digital photo album.
With MS 2003SE it has MS outlook, excel, Word WM9. You can even open PDF's.
A little known fact about this phone is that it is Blue tooth ready. You can use Bluetooth with this phone. Yes.
Also available 802.11G/B SDIO cards. ( I have used quite successfully, can even run Skype on it for portable VOIP).
There is also an available Tengo integrated and swap-able Qwerty keyboard, You can Dock/Charge/sync with the keyboard in place. ( Detachable is nice for when I don't have to do heavy note taking.) Otherwise it is nice to enjoy the small form factor, This is a definite pro.
While it is only a Tri-band phone it has a great radio stack. I have Traveled with it world wide, and I have had signal when others with a quad band phone had none.
(missing 900 band)
The screen is nice and bright, speaker phone is great, the small size is nice when you have to put it up to your ear (compared to other pda phones)
If your just looking at a PDA show me one that has all the bells and whistles that has a 400Mhz Processor, 64M/64M. 64K TFT VGA screen. For about $150 ? Then throw in the Phone as a bonus.
Coldly Judged great phone
I have owned this phone for a week now and I love it. The processor runs alot faster than my previous 6315 and I was pleased with the internet connection through the pc and with a wi-fi card. Does need a few buttons for voice command but other than that it's a great alternative for a cheaper pocket pc. I was truly surprised, after a week of use no soft resets at all! Pros: Same as any other pocket pc, maybe faster, internet and email is great. Cons: Very few buttons but scroll wheel works ok.
HARSHLY JUDGED
First of all I am a UK user - Orange (I bought the phone on Ebay new for less than £100 including delivery).
I think it best to start with the plus points as I think they outweigh the negatives.
The phone lasts 2 days if I switch it off at night and although I am light phone user, I use the pda side a fair bit. In 2 days about 30 mins on phone and about 5 hours on pda. Which I think is pretty good.
The only other combined devices I have owned like this are the Treo 600 (palm) and the HP Jornada 928 (now that is a quite a poor device!)
The Treo is an excellent machine if you like palm, but that is limited in its low res screen (a lot of programs will not run in low res) and whilst it has a camera it is a poor one!
Back to the 4100. It locks up I hear! Yes it does! I have owned it for 2 months now and it locks up every 3 or 4 days, but a quick soft reset and it is back to normal. What you have got to consider with theses devices is that they are a pda first and a phone second so if the phone side is your prime concern. DO NOT BUY ONE! All Pocket PCs (I have had plenty) lock up and need a soft reset quite regularly.
The pocket pc side is pretty quick. I have a 500 meg SD card in mine, practically full with programs, games and Music (nice sound with headphones supplied).
They're not reliable I hear! Well obviously I might have been lucky, but so far apart from soft resets mentioned, mine has been fine and Ive dropped it at least 3 times onto a hard floor!
I was pliantly surprised to find you can use this just the same as any other phone (although after 30 mins call your ear will be sweating!). I find the call quality excellent and nobody has complained they cannot hear me.
I used to carry the Treo and a Pocket PC now I just carry the 4100.
THE NEGATIVES: Too few buttons - some games will not play properly because of lack of buttons!!!
Large Antenna is quite ugly!!
For the price paid I was struggling to get a Pocket PC!
Give it a chance. I am glad I did.
What out
Where does one begin. If you used to using a PDA and wanted to have a phone tied with it. Don't come here. This device does not have any programmable buttons. Strike one. When using the phone feature it is to easy to hit the toggle switch. This switches between all previous calls and your speed dial. that's a checked swing. If you went from phone back to PDA mode and accidentally hit the green talk button on the bottom you just started another call. Strike two. Strike three is that in the entire world there are only two hands free devices that work with this phone/pda. That is right the entire world. And they are ear bud types. One stereo one mono. So we have three strikes and we haven't even talked about the fax that a blue tooth headset will not work for the phone feature. Because no one makes a voice/data blue tooth SD card. I could go on but you are most likely tired of reading by now.
pretty good, but still has some bugs
I used to use the siemens sx56 pda phone, which was decent but had horrible reception. I got this audiovox ppc4100 and though it's better, it's not as better as I has hoped for.
PROS:
It definately has pretty good reception.
The screen seems to not wear as quickly as my sx56 did.
It's one of the smaller pda phones I've seen.
CONS:
The speaker is distorted at times and doesn't get loud enough for me (even in speaker phone mode). sx56 was louder.
The stylus doesn't fit snugly and can fall out. (easily fixed though with applying a small piece of electrical tape to the top of stylus)
It does freez up at times, though it seems most pocket pc's do.
The microphone doesn't have a auto level input control, and recording louder things will be distorted. (sx56 has this option, which worked really well, i.e. recording concerts!)
There are no compatable headsets for it. (the one's it comes with don't fit well in ears)
If you're can work around the above cons, it's a pretty decent phone/pda. I'm still waiting for something much better though.
A great idea...just a really BAAAAD phone
My wife and I bought two PPC4100 phones from Audiovox through AT&T Wireless. I ended up going ahead and paying for the cancellation fee on my contract and getting out of the service altogether because of the HORRIBLE customer service and a truly aweful phone.
Since this review is supposed to be about the phone, though, I'll just stick with the facts about it.
PROS:
I know, I know...after that intro, it's hard to believe that I'd have ANYTHING good to say about it, but there ARE some really good things about the phone.
* Using it without a headset works pretty well. It's not too terribly comfortable, but you can hear and talk on it just fine.
* It got signal in places my other phones didn't, so the antenna must be pretty good (hint: keep they stylus in, it seems to boost the signal somehow)
* Battery life seems pretty good. I could usually go all day with average usage without running out of juice.
CONS:
* It seems like it's always having crash problems that force you to reset it
* MAKE NO MISTAKE: THIS IS NOT A PHONE! The phone features should be thought of as a bonus feature to the PDA. Dialing with it isn't reliable. The buttons sometimes don't register when you press them, other times, the wrong button altogether will get pressed, and other weird things.
* The phone module causes big time electrical interferance with things such as land-line phones, speakers, monitors, etc. I could always tell when a call was about to come in because my monitor on my computer would flash and I'd get static of the speakers on my computer. (One has to wonder if the radio signals that caused that interferance are healthy for you...)
* They stylus eventually gets too loose in its sleeve and constantly falls out
* The only headsets available for it are "ear-buds", which I find terribly uncomfortable. It's a custom connection, so no other headsets will work on it.
I would definitely recommend finding another pda phone to buy.
Not too many issues in first week
I got my 4100 on Saturday, so this review is based on 5 days use. This is the first time I'v been patient and let the phone charge overnight before playing. All was going well until my wife called and couldn't hear a word I said. Bad microphone. Took it to the store and exchanged it (they let me keep my fully charged battery). All seems well so far.
I upgraded from th MPx200 so I was at least familiar with Windows Mobile.
Pros:
1. Big, bright screen--visible in all but the brightest light.
2. Fairly fast--much faster than my MPx. Surfing the web is about as fast though.
3. Improved syncing--MPx would only sync correctly if connected to desktop.
4. Vastly improved reception over the MPx. I can use my phone in my house now.
5. Decent voice quality--with and without headset.
6. Size--I continue to be impressed with so much in such a small package.
Cons:
1. Big, bulky antenna
2. No Java support--not critical for me, but I had to mention it
3. Lack of buttons--quick access to Calendar, Contacts, and a directional button
4. Cradle--I'm waiting for the day those connectors break
5. Lack of accessories--This seems to be par for the course with new phones at AT&T. I'm sure they are on their way soon.
One minor quirk I have noticed. I have my 4100 set up to retrieve POP email once per hour. It does this fine. However when it's in the cradle, it can't connect to GPRS. Not terribly critical since I can check POP mail from my desktop as well. My MPx could do this with no problem.
