In this article, I will be reviewing the AudioVox XV6700 from Verizon Wireless. 95% of this (Aside from the facts) is going to be based solely on my experience as a user.
I know that when I am reading review articles about devices, I would want to know about the person reviewing it. This way I can determine how to interpret this review, and to what extent to trust it.
So here’s a little bit about my background, I am currently a Systems Engineer, and have been in the IT field for about 6 years now. I love gadgets, and I buy a lot of them. I have always been a fan of PDAs, and always had an issue with having to carry both a cell phone and a PDA. Up until now, I had own a Palm m505, m515, Tungsten C, Toshiba Zaurus, and one of the older iPaqs.
In general, when I purchase an electronic gadget I go pretty deep into it, and try to stretch it to its limits. so, please keep in mind, that the shortcomings that I am seeing with the device I’m about to review might actually be caused by the high level of customization that I did on the device, and might not necessarily mean that you will experience the same exact problems.
If I remember correctly, since I got the device (about 2 weeks ago), I think I HARD reset it about 6 times, mostly to explore different options. you don’t have to do that, and hopefully in this review, I will provide information that will allow you to avoid hard resetting too often.
Part 1: Physical Design
I went to my local Verizon Wireless store to check out the different Smartphones. the 2 other ones that I was looking at are the Treo 700w, and the Samsung i730. at first glance, or pick up.. you can immediately feel that the XV6700 is lighter than the other two, in general, I thought it was less bulky than the other ones. By phone standard, I think it’s slightly thicker tha the rest of them, but for good reason. the XV6700 has a sleek pull out full Qwerty keyboard. (almost full.. i’ll tell you why later).
The device itself looked pretty sweet to. it has a black front and back, with the middle part, and the keyboard being silver. The device is mostly plastic, but surprisingly doesn’t feel flimsy. Putting the headset on my ear was a little bit awkward, but that was mostly because I’ve always used a flip phone (the LG VX4500). I think any PDA phone that you will acquire will feel a little awkward on the ear… (honestly, it kinda felt like I was holding a plate on my head! 
). I quickly got over that though… also, there are a lot of ways to avoid actually having to hold the device to your ear. so no worries there… you can either use the speaker phone in it, or get a headset, or better yet, a bluetooth headset.
The keys on the device were pretty easily accessible. one thing I thought was a little bit odd was the volume control switch on the side of the device. in general, I’m used to 2 up/down buttons, or a wheel that controls the volume. the XV6700 has a slide/toggle switch for the volume. I guess If you dig a little more into it, you can possibly find a good custom use for this switch. (i haven’t yet, but you can let me know if you do)
The slide out keyboard is very sweet. it feels pretty sturdy, and I don’t think it’s going to break anytime soon. I really loved the way the keyboard feels. the downside of it would probably be that you can’t really do too much one handed typing, as the keyboard will require both hands to use the shift key or the special function (special chars) key. that’s no big deal though, because in most cases, since you bought a PDA phone you’re going to have your full attention on the thing when you’re writing a document or whatnot. In addition, there are 4 other options for the keyboard. I will get into that later as well.
Moving on from the keyboard. the USB port is pretty cool for us mobile users who use a lot of the PDA features on the phone. Obviously, this is going to drain your battery more than if you just had your phone on standby. here’s the good news.. you ready?… you can charge the phone both through the cradle as well as through the USB cable connected to your laptop … yup .. you don’t need an external charger… while you’re syncing, you’re charging… and if you have both the cradle and the USB cable at the same time, you can always plug the USB cable in the cradle, and put your device in the cradle, now you’re also charging and syncing. I thought that was very convenient.
The screen brightness on the phone is pretty good overall, despite what you read in other reviews, in some ways it has some truth to it, but it’s not completely useless. I’m talking about the point where everybody mentions that the screen brightness really sucks in direct sunlight. well, yeah, it does.. but that’s only if you’re literally in direct sunlight. In mid day, in the car, I can see the screen perfectly without any problems. The color on the screen, by the way, is very nice, bright and crisp. the brightness adjustment has about 10 levels, so you can go from dim to pretty bright. Even with that though, the full brightness still does not remedy the problem with lack of visibility in direct sunlight.
The speaker on the phone is mediocre, you will read in other reviews that it’s useless. I personally don’t think it’s useless, it’s not like some of the Motorola (Nextel) speakerphones… but I think it’s pretty decent. After all, it is a phone and PDA, not a stereo system. if you want great sound, go buy a BOSE sound system or something 
. I thought the speaker was very acceptable, if you’re in a loud environment, or on the freeway with your windows open, the speaker, even at its highest volume will be a a little bit hard to hear, but when you’re driving, you should be wearing your Bluetooth headset anyway, and at the club, you shouldn’t be talking on the phone
The Camera is a 1.3MegaPixel cam with Video cam (with sound). Honestly, I don’t think it’s the best cam (by phone standards). I’ve definitely seen better, the 1.3MP is a little bit deceiving, BUT it does the job. a couple of quirks with it, but once you figure it out it’s pretty cool. read below for some of the camera features.
.. continue reading ..
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