Customer Reviews

PCS Phone Sanyo VM4500 - Silver (Sprint)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I took few minutes of my busy times to tell the world about my experience using this new phone. If you think you loved or admired the Sanyo SCP-5300, this one will blow your mind.
1- The speakerphone makes it one of the biggest difference. I leave the phone on my desk, speakerphone on, work on my laptop while talking...the mic captures my voice very well: Can hands-free calls get any better than that?
The speakerphone volume is so loud I keep it at less than the middle. Incredible! A button on the side easily enables you to to take calls without opening the phone and hear the caller over the speakerphone...just so practical.

It features many practical little options that make huge difference with the 5300. On top of many other bells and whistles, you can take 15-sec videos and send them in seconds to another pcs phone or email.

I went thru the Sanyo SCP-4500, 4700, 4900, 5300 and now VM-4500. There's no doubt this is The phone I'm going to keep.

I've had this phone for a few weeks and I love it, the speakerphone is great and Sprints coverage around the Boston area is fantastic (came from att gsm -- biggest nightmare ever). The voice dialing is the most accurate I've seen on a phone. HOWEVER, I do think that the menu system could be more customizable (be able to assign more then one shortcut) and I do not like the fact that they do not display how long the call was in the call logs. Also the phone is a little big but it is light for its size. I would definitly recommend this phone to anyone who likes to have everything in a phone, and is willing to deal with its size. I love it and would not trade it for any other phone on the market.

Unlike some of the reviewers here on this board, I've owned a Sanyo vm4500 for almost two months, and I agree with everything the Amazon official reviewer says about the phone. It's absolutely the best phone out there right now. Some say the new Toshiba video phone (also for SPRINT PCS) is better, but to me the Toshiba looks a bit too big and bulky, and you just don't feel the word "fun" when you look at it, vs. the cutie looks of the vm4500.

As a cellular phone this one gets top-notch reception. I live on the outskirts of Cambridge but I get four full bars all the time, and a coworker also loves its reception out in Lexington, where Verizon and AT&T (worst service) tend to fade out quickly. I understand Verizon has better nationwide coverage overall, but for me SPRINT is good and this phone does a faby job of keeping connected.

I won't list the amazing number of power features you get with this phone. The user interface is amazingly intuitive, and you gotta love the bright screen! The buttons are easy to push and are backlit for evening usage. The pictures are not Canon S400 like but pretty decent for a camera phone. And, of course, the video clips! Only 15 seconds, but this is absolutely a God-send when you have little kids and you don't want to carry a camcorder or bother with video editing later.

This is a totally cool phone that makes everyone drool when they see it.

I've been using this phone for about 4 weeks now. I have used Nextel in the past and the new Sprint Ready Link PTT capabilities are nearly equal to the Direct Connect feature from Nextel.

What I like about this phone:

-compact size
-camera that takes "ok" still and moving pictures
-easy upload of pictures to web
-downloadable ringtones
-PTT
-reception is very good

What I don't like about this phone:

-The PTT is not error correcting. What that means is that since the PTT from Sprint is essentially VOIP (voice over Internet) -- if your phone can't connect to the Internet is stops with this honking error message. Rather than retry it sits there waiting for you to press a key to acknowledge the error. This unfortunately disqualifies the phone for serious use by many companies.
-Battery life seems very short. I believe this is because of the Ready Link constantly communicating with the Internet. I'm getting maybe a day of medium use.
-The ReadyLink tones sound like something that should be on a Barbie walkie talkie for kids. Believe me half the time you'll never hear the. Oh - and they need an alert feature too.

I've been using my new vm4500 for 1 week since i tragically washed my 5300 without insurance. i was very skeptical about dropping the cash for this phone, and without any rebates, it's pretty pricey. after reading several positive reviews, i picked it up at best buy for $350 and and never regretted it. The navy color has really grown on me and unlike an earlier reviewer, i don't feel the phone is large at all. especially with the slimmer battery (which has performed wonderfully) it definitely feels slimmer than my old 5300 did. programs run faster (pac-man smokes now) and i like the menu. the video recorder is a sweet plus to go along with the camera. i subscribed to mobitv, the live tv package, and it's pretty sweet as well. as soon as the frame rates get a little faster, this is going to be an excellent option. the audio is beautiful through the speaker. the only thing i haven't tried yet is the ready link, only because i don't know anyone else who has a rl capable phone yet. voice dialing is right on, and other than the stupid "my buddy" dog that hops around the screen (you can easily turn this off through the display menu), i would say this phone is as perfect as it gets for right now. i've owned a nokia, a lg, a kyocera, a samsung, and this is my second sanyo. no doubt, sanyo, and the vm4500, is the way to go if you want a loaded out phone that is functional and fun.

I have had this phone 2 weeks. I switched from AT&T who has just about the worst service of all the major phone carriers. I never had signals going into buildings with AT&T and the Nokia 6310i (more a fault of AT&T rather than the Nokia). I ate the ... early termination fee, I was that fed up with AT&T. I live in Orange County, CA. The service with Sprint at least in all the places I have gone thus far has been FANTASTIC!! I have been all over OC, gone up to Victorville, and to Torrance, with 4 bar reception almost everywhere! The reception on this phone is without equeal. My brother and several of my friends have Samsung phones with Sprint service. When they have 0, 1 or 2 signal strength bars, I have 4 bars, full strength!! The phone you choose absolutely can make an impact on the quality of reception, and a reduction in "lost signal"/"dropped calls". It pays to buy a high end phone rather than struggle with the "free after rebate" or even the [money] after rebate phones. Yes [money] is a ton of money, but for me who uses about 2000 minutes/month, it is absolutely worth it.

The speaker phone is great. I have used it several times, this is one of the reasons I wanted this phone. The video clips while only 15 seconds in length each, are a lot of fun and include sound. I do think the one area Samsung is better is the quality of the image from the camera. I think photos are somewhat but not significantly cleaner looking with the Samsung. However, with bright lights or direct sunlight, the image from the camera in the VM4500 phone seems to be overcome and hide the main object you are trying to take a photo of. But beyond that, NOTHING currently available from any other carrier is as good as this phone, in my humble opinion. I do wish the phone had bluetooth and modem capabilities however.

The voice dialing features built into the phone work wonderfully. You don't need to pay the $5/month to Sprint to have their voice dialing service as voice dialing is built into the phone. You can attach voice dialing to 30 phone numbers.

If you are a heavy talker like me, I would buy the extended battery especially if you use the web, camera, and video clip funtions much. The extended battery doesn't add that much depth to the phone either. You can extend battery life significantly if you turn off some of the "bells and whistles" the phone has. Things such as sound and animation when the phone is turned on or off. Shorten the length of time the displays and kepad are lit after a phone call is completed. Turn off the Nextel like "Push To Talk (PTT)" service Sprint now offers, called "Ready Link" if you don't know anyone else that has Sprint service with a PTT capable phone. The PTT function when enabled is constantly on, communicating with a cell tower waiting for an incoming PTT call and eats up battery life. Turn off the flashing led's which notify you of events like missed calls, received voice/text/email messages, etc. The lights are cool looking, but unless you are in a meeting or a movie theatre, they are not necessary. Turn off the GPS tracking function which is continuously sending location information to the nearest cell tower to track where you are (Did you know that phones are now doing that?). Emergency 911 calls however will still be able to track you but that is good. All these functions I just mentioned are cool, but not necessary all the time, and as a result contribute to a shorter battery life. By turning off or shortening the time in use of these functions, I have been OK with the standard battery, but I bought the extended just to have in case.

I would have ranked the phone 5 stars had it had the previously mentioned bluetooth and modem capabilities. All in all, I absolutely love this phone. A friend of mine 1 week earlier signed up with and bought the Verizon/LG6000 camera phone. I prefer all the features of my Sprint/Sanyo VM4500. The reception seems to be about equal with both phones in the area we live. However the LG6000 camera is really, really bad, especially at night. Just FYI.

I used to have the A600 from Samsung (the one with the roatating display) until I tragically lost it one night. I was uninsured and nobody else carried that phone anymore. So I went to Radio Shack and found the VM4500. I didnt get a rebate so I was a little skeptical about paying $370.00 for a cell phone but I finally decided to go for it. Now I am glad I lost that other phone. This phone has many impressive features, including the video camera/digital camera, and the speakerphone, not to mention the dual color displays. For a Sprint phone, the battery lasts a while, and it charges fast (about 45 minutes). The phone's LED's on the back are really bright when you use them when taking pictures or videos. In fact I cant look at them for very long, in the dark they are almost blinding. Theres also a cool little multicolored LED in the middle of the video lights which has many functions you can assign to it. The speakerphone is REALLY loud and very clear, this blows away even most land line speaker phones. I havent used the ReadyLink service because I dont know a single person with a Sprint phone besides me. The keys and screens are nicely illuminated. I like the fact that you can start the camera and place a call without even opening the phone. Another thing I found interesting was that text messages go directly to the phone instead of going to that Sprint SMS mailbox thing. You still have to go there to send a reply but apparently (according to the phone) you wont have to soon. This phone also has A LOT more memory than the other Sprint phones. All in all this phone is worth more than the price that I payed for it. I love it, and I'm positive you'll love it too.

The features on this phone are great. The menus are easy to navigate and there are mini-help/info buttons for most features.

The digital camera is quite impressive when you bump the quality up.

The only downside I've found is that there aren't more speed dial options, and the "alarm" is modeled as a "callback alarm."

This phone is amazing. I hate to rub it in, but I have the blue one ;) ...

I upgraded from a 3 year old, standard, non-color, non-cam, non-feature samsung and I couldn't be happier now!

Also, extended battery boasts 5.25 hrs talk time, and is very worth every penny!

So I like the phone alot. It is my first color/camera/3g phone. So far I am very impressed. I was a little mad about it not being blue. I think the silver kinda makes it look like every other phone on the market. I am having a problem with the IP services always timing out. But that could be a problem with sprint. I love the speaker phone. Having used nextel for the last 3 years you kinda get used to it. The screen is very nice...excellent resolution and color. Battery life is ok. I would defenitly recommend the phone.

I found the Sanyo VM4500 to be great. The reception is great, no dropped calls. Those mentioning dropped calls might challenge the service rather than the phone. I've used the picture and video features at work as well as at kids events. The online web picture sharing is way cool! I found a great deal on a case, car charger, AC charger and extra battery on eBay for $8. I've had most phones made since the Motorola "Brick". This phone is by far superior and the features and "toys" make it a must have. Even hooking up the laptop and surfing the web works great! For that you'll need a third party software and a data cable found easily on the web. Easy to use, easy to carry, great reception, pretty good high resolution pictures(while only a few in memory) and the 15 second videos with sound that can be emailed or sent to another phone makes this handset the best one out there today! Well done Sanyo! The only negative is the battery life is a bit too short, but hey, it is after all functioning as a camcorder most of the day! :-)