Reviewing the Virgin Mobile Kyocera Slider Sonic

Design:
Ones first impression of the Kyocera Slider Sonic is that its made for the nightlife. With its all-black color, beautiful LCD screen, silver buttons, and all around slider-phone style (which is highly fashionable this year), people are going goo-goo gaga over it. Little to buyers no, the sliding action of the *Slider* sucks!!! Unlike many other sliders out there, the Slider Sonic takes two hands to open and close the device. Slider Sonics open stiffly. Its size 3.9x1.9x0.9 makes the Slider Sonic compatible and easy to hold, but if you're a jean wearer, there's a tight squeeze to get this phone in jean pockets.

The Slider Sonic has a bright 252,000 color screen that people call 'Splendid to look at', although it is very hard to see in direct daylight. Screen measures a little less than 2" diagonally. And the crisp-screen display makes the phones' snapshots look highly detailed and elegant.

I must admit that a cool Wheel of Fortune looking menu adds an original touch to the Slider Sonic. The keypad has blue-lit soft keys that are big and easy to manipulate, which makes texting a lot easier.

The speakerphone on this phone actually has good quality (despite all other Virgin Mobile phones). People enjoy the Slider Sonic speakerphone not only because of its good sound quality but because you can turn the speakerphone on before you dial. Most people said they would give the Slider Sonic (compared to other Virgin Mobile phones with speakerphones) a B+ grade.

There's a volume rocker and 2.5mm headphone port, headphone port is hid by rubber flap, on the left edge of the phone. And on the right side of the phone is a button to activate the camera, and right above is the TansFlash card slot, which is also hid by the rubber flap. On the back of Slider Sonic is found a self-portrait mirror, digital camera lens, speaker, and small flash.

Features:

500 - entry phonebook (room in each contact for multiple entries)

Calendar (day views but no week views)

Text and multimedia messaging

WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser

Voice dialing and memos

Vibrate mode

Speakerphone (Like I said above, it can be activated before dialing)

Tip calculator

Alarm clock

Calculator

Countdown timer

World clock

Digital camera

MP3 player

VirginXL

And you get a 32 MB Tans Flash card for storing music in addition to the 16 MB of shared memory.

You already know that the Slider Sonic comes complete with a camera, but did you know the camera can also be used as video recorder. I'm not a big fan of the recorder as the video looks murky, but the camera shots aren't too bad. Camera shots come out looking a little pale (but you have to remember it's a cell phone camera.) A nice thing about the camera is that you can save your pictures to the TransFlash memory and transfer them to your computer via USB. Video is automatically saved to the TransFlash memory.

What's included?

Phone with all features (Some additional fees will apply to get features like web and VirginXL)
USB cable

Plastic belt holder

Stereo earbuds with an in-line remote/microphone

If you would like to find out more about the Slider Sonic or would like to purchase it, visit www.virginmobileusa.com

Price: $99.99