Mountain View Cellphones

2/13/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

The LG LX-160, “Free Phone,” is exactly what you get.  Although you do save money upfront, you really don’t get a phone that serves the purpose of lasting a long time.  This phone was not well built and we deal with the problems constantly.

 Key failure points:

1.  The charging port.  It’s poorly designed and starts to give out if you put any type of pressure on it.  This leads to a downward spiral of charging port abuse as customers try to push, jam, wiggle the charging port to charge, causing more damage.  At some point, the whole assembly is ripped from the motherboard and the phone is worthless.

2.   Keypad sticks or fails.  We’ve seen this a few times where the phone will not recognize a certain key.  It could be due to a failure on the keypad dome or by excessive pressure on the keys once a slow response starts.  Again, the cycle of abuse to make the electronics work.

3.  Searching for service.  The antenna/chipset is busted, kaput, DOA, etc…

So, if you have an LX-160, be gentle with it.  It’s not a rugged phone and if you use it infrequently, then it will work ok.  However, if you are a constant phone user and you wanted to save a few bucks up front on your purchase, you won’t be satisfied with the durability of this unit.  Buy another unit with better design and parts.  The mid-range Samsung M-520 or Sanyo Eclipse would better fit your use.  Buyers need to take some personal responsibility for their purchases and tell the sales person at the store how they use their phone and what they need.

Remember, the cheapest O-rings blow up space shuttles.  In the cell phone world, you often do get what you paid.  There are differences in prices for a reason.

By: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  7/17/2008

Sprint’s Mobile Sync on NDC (Nextel Direct Connect) phones is a great bonus to these devices.  Mobile Sync provides the capability to manage your contact lists online and with a computer sync to Outlook.  This gives great protection to your contacts and to your company in managing several phones and contact lists.

 Mobile sync provides several cool features.  Of course, these come at NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE.  Another great value advantage for Sprint.  Currently the models supported are the Sanyo Pro 700 & Pro 200, Samsung Z400, and LG LX400. 

1.  Network back up of your contacts is not standard on these phones.  A great way to ensure you don’t lose your contacts if you lose your phone or change phones.

2.  If you get a new phone with Mobile Sync, you can download the contacts from the network to your phone.  A great benefit to companies that need to manage several or several hundred phones.

3.  Sync with Outlook on desktops is included.  A small application is included that allows this. 

4.  Import or export of your contact list to the phone from correctly formated files for mass upload / downloads.

5.  You can create and save your Team or Group Connect lists.

For administrators of many phones, there are additional useful features.

1.  You can create and manage a shared address book with all the phones and the company phone list.

2.   You can assign particular numbers and push numbers to the phone from the online site.  This is a great tool for sending numbers to phones in a group setting (i.e. added an important vendor everyone needs the phone number of). 

3.  Lastly, you can assign call restrictions/access to all NDC radio functions to users.  So, if you only what particular users to call and receive calls from a small set of people, then you can now control that from online.

Sprint’s Mobile Sync is a great innovation and adds tons of value. 

By: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  6/12/2008

One of the great features that has been incorporated into cell phones is the FM transmitter.  The greatest use of this feature is to mini-cast (if that is a word) your phone media to your stereo in FM.  For example, you have 4GB of MP3’s on your phone and you want to play them in your car or your home without wires.  Just set the phone up and then you can transmit the music from your phone to the stereo FM receiver to play the music in your car or home. 

Great ways to use this technology. 

1.  Be the one who brings the cool tunes to your get togethers

2.  In the car and tired of radio

3.  You don’t need another MP3 device or IPOD anymore, it’s already with you

4.  You don’t need wires or any other “adaptors” or “cradles” to make your phone play music thru your stereo speakers 

Sprint has the LG Muziq with this feature.  It’s a greatly overlooked feature of phones that can really improve the quality of media and life.