Review by Gary H. Mercado
Boring. That's the first thought that crossed my mind when I initially saw it. A little heavy and big, too, once I started to handle it. The test unit's removable clip-on cover came in white, and as such reminded me somewhat of a bar of soap. I imagine that somewhere in, say, Procter & Gamble, a scientist is thinking of ways to make their soap easier to hold onto. Somewhere in France, there's probably a guy doing the same for Sagem. They should probably talk shop over a beer or two.
My initial, as in first few minutes, of use also weren't very promising. The keypads were shaped like little medicine tablets, and the "joystick"
required a bit of pressure to produce results. There is a reassuring "click" and good feedback though, although I would think girls with long nails might not appreciate it.
However, the Sagem My X-6 does eventually grow on you after using it for a few days and you start to actually learn its sometimes confusing commands. Despite its brick-like appearance, it's actually quite a colorful phone and it uses its 128 x 160 pixel, 16-bit color TFT screen to the fullest almost all the time. Its main feature, of course, is its integrated CCD- based 640 x 480 resolution camera, which can take decent photos or at least better than the standard CMOS type other camera-phones use. The lens hides away in a smart sliding cover at the back, which I think is a great idea and would probably save the owner unneeded grief from possible smudging, or worse, breaking.
Did I say it was colorful? There is color and graphics in almost everything you do with the phone, even when you're just tooling around its many options to see what's there. The 2.3 MB memory can store an adequate amount of pictures that you can use as wallpapers and screensavers, as well as, of course, your phonebook and voice messages. As far as changing the look is concerned, you needn't worry about this. From changeable fascias, skins, cute keypad tones and polyphonic ring tones, you will not lack for personalization options. I wasn't able to try Sagem's own "Planetsagem" service via GPRS, but the phone will definitely try to bring you there for just that, if you try to use it to get online.
Speaking about GPRS, the phone is 4+1 and 3+2 capable, is WAP-enabled, and has a large block of an IrDA port smack on its right side. This is all that constitutes its connectivity options. However, as mine didn't come with cable connectivity to download pictures to my PC with, and as I have yet to buy an IrDA port, I merely tried to synch the bundled software with MS Outlook. Synching was successful, but only the barest essentials were available.
Battery life is good for a camera-phone, as mine lasted up to three days, occasional picture taking and browsing included. Fortunately for texters, the My X-6 is not dif cult to learn. It even has a helpful "zoom" function that increases font size, and the "skins" feature I mentioned earlier also helps you choose a good contrast, such as white fonts over a dark green background for easy texting even in the dark. In fact, after a while, you will probably get pretty comfortable sending SMS. The hard and tiny keypads are a little disappointing, given that it's a large phone and it well could have used that space for bigger buttons, but over time you can get used to it.
GRINS
? colorful graphical user interface
? easy-to-use, integrated CCD-based 640 x 480 resolution camera
? sliding cover to protect the lens
? long battery life
GRIMACES
? hard and tiny keypads
? soap bar-like look
THE LOWDOWN
Sagem has a promising phone here. Fortunately and rather surprisingly, SMS is easy to use and needless to say, that is essential in this country. If it came in a more appealing package, I would probably rate it higher. If you don't mind it's rather dated styling, the Sagem My X-6 is a pretty solid phone.
