| Mini-Review of the Kyocera 7135 |
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The Kyocera 7135 is a PDA-phone, which means that it’s essentially a PDA with a phone grafted onto it. I’ve never been especially pleased with the phone functionality of most other PDA-phones I’ve tested in the past, but the 7135 is not one of them. It even feels like a phone when I held it to my ear, which is more than can be said of much of its direct competition. Its core phone functionality is actually quite good in most cases (with one notable exception).
The 7135 is available on Bell Mobility. Last Updated: 25-Jan-2005 |
Before reading this review, please read Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
RF Performance
RF Sensitivity: Sadly we start off the review with
that notable exception. The RF sensitivity of the 7135 is perhaps the
poorest I’ve seen in quite some time. Just about every CDMA phone I’ve tested in
the last couple of years has blown away my ancient
Motorola StarTac when it
comes to pulling in signals, but the 7135 can just barely compete with it.
Subsequently I’m forced to give this phone a POOR rating in this aspect.
Over-the-road Performance: As this was a
mini-review I wasn’t able to perform over-the-road tests with the phone, and I
cannot comment on this aspect of performance.
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
Audio Performance
Tonal Balance: Superb. Along with the
Motorola V710 (which I’d tested just a few
days prior to this test) the Kyocera 7135 has excellent overall tonal balance.
Is it better than the V710? It’s hard to say, as I wasn’t able to test these two
phones back-to-back. I’d have to say that they are about equal.
Sound Reproduction: Also very good, meaning that it
ties the V710 as the best-sounding CDMA phone that I’ve thus far tested. I
simply couldn’t fault the phone for what I heard coming out of its earpiece. It
had the same excellent aural qualities when used with my Samsung earbud too, and
so headset use should be a reasonable option (which is a good thing for a device
that’s also a PDA).
Earpiece Volume: Maximum volume wasn’t stellar, but
it was actually quite good. I can’t see anyone having a big problem with this
aspect of the phone. It appeared to include Kyocera’s SmartSound feature,
which no doubt helped to bolster my opinion of the earpiece volume. The feature
boosts the level of quiet of callers, thus making all your calls sound pretty
much the same level.
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: The ringer is fairly competent,
though not super-loud like my Motorola i730.
We set the phone to its loudest ringtone and we put it in a pants pocket. Even
over at Square One we had no trouble hearing it ring over the general background
din. However, I’d have to say that if we’d been somewhere much louder (like out
on a busy street, or if the mall had been really crowded) we might not have
heard the ringer at all.
Keypad Design: The keypad was a little cramped at
the bottom of the phone, but it was traditionally laid out, and the overall feel
was excellent. I had no problem whatsoever using the keypad for phone
functionality. I never found myself having to repeat key-presses, though I
believe that it could have done with a bit more tactile feedback.
Headset: I tried the 7135 with my excellent Samsung
earbud, and the sound quality was at least on par with the gorgeous sound
produced by the native earpiece. Being able to use a PDA-phone with an earbud or
headset (as I mentioned above) is a must for people who need to access the data
on their PDAs while talking on the phone. The 7135 works exceptionally well in
this respect.
Display: The display isn’t exactly the type you’d
choose to look at vibrant color photographs, but like the type used on my
Blackberries it has the distinct advantage of being very visible in direct and
in-direct sunlight. I took the 7135 outside of the mall for this test, and I was
very impressed with the ease at which I could read the screen, even when the
backlight went off.
Phonebook: Because the phone is build around a PDA,
the phonebook functionality is excellent. This is because high-detail phonebooks
are an integral part of most PDAs, even if they don’t include a phone.
Conclusions
With the exception of the rather disappointing RF performance there isn’t really
much I can fault the 7135 for. It has excellent audio (matching the Motorola
V710) and just about every other aspect is either average or above-average. If
they could fix the RF problem they’d have one of the best CDMA phones out there,
regardless of type. If I were in the market for a PDA-phone I would definitely
give this one serious consideration, despite its poor RF properties.
