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Home > Reviews > Manufacturer > Sanyo Katana DLX Cell Phone Review

Sanyo Katana DLX Cell Phone Review - Organizer

Alfredo Padilla
Published on August 06, 2007 Comment on this






Synchronization Ease of Use (0.0)
The Katana DLX does not support synchronization of PIM information between your PC and phone; there is no way to copy your list of phone numbers from one to the other.

Alerts (6.0)
The Katana DLX only allows you to create alerts for calendar appointments. When an alert goes off you see the title on the exterior display. Hitting any of the exterior keys will put the appointment into Snooze mode, where it will sound again in 10 minutes. We are pleased to see you can change the default snooze interval to five, 15, or 20 minutes, but we would prefer the ability to choose how long we want to snooze the item for when it goes off. We're also happy you can set an alert to go off at any time before the appointment goes off, which is better than phones that force you to choose from presets. You can also choose an individual sound for each appointment you create. We found the flexibility of alerts on the Katana DLX to be a step above most regular phones.

Over the Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The Katana does not support synchronization of PIM information over the air out of the box. Sprint does offer a service that will synchronize your contacts to an online service for a fee, however this is not the same as phones that support Exchange integration, where changes made on your device are automatically synchronized with your computer.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (4.28)

To test how easy it is to add contacts to the Katana DLX we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have added a contact name and phone number. We repeat this for five different test contacts and take the average for our score. The Katana DLX took an average of 23.36 seconds to add a new contact. This is about average for a regular phone that lacks a QWERTY keypad. As you can see from the table below, it is just a smidge slower than most of the comparison phones.

Cell Phone Time (sec) Score
Sanyo Katana DLX 23.36 4.28
Nokia N75 22.84 4.38
Sprint Upstage 21.30 4.69
Motorola Krzr K1m 21.74 4.60
Sanyo M1 20.60 4.85
LG Chocolate VX8550 20.50 4.88

Looking/Sorting/Search (2.5)
Contacts on the Katana DLX are automatically sorted by first name. You can filter your contacts by group, seeing all the contacts in each group or all unassigned contacts. The only way to search through your contacts is by using multi-tap. Predictive text search is not supported. We were pleased that you can search by first or last name, starting with the first letter of each name. You cannot search for portions of a name, for example someone with the name Jackson wouldn't come up if you searched for "cks". The sorting and search functions in the Katana DLX's address book are pretty run of the mill, with nothing too impressive to speak of.

Fields (3.2)
When you create a new contact on the Katana DLX you can fill in any of nine fields. You can add up to seven different phone numbers or two e-mail address, as well as name, group, ringer, and address. There is also a note field, where you can add whatever information you want, and an option to add a photo to the contact. The selections are pretty solid for a regular phone, however they're not a patch on the dozens of fields that smart phones like the Nokia N75 can hold.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (4.67)
The Katana DLX can set up to eight different speed dials, one for each number except 1. You can also record a voice tag to each contact, allowing you to use the phone's voice dialing feature with that contact. Recording a voice tag for each contact can get a little annoying, especially if you have hundreds of contacts, but it's also more accurate than most voice command features we've seen. The Katana DLX does not include a speaker independent voice command feature anyhow, so in this case it's voice tags or nothing.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (6.57)

To test how easy it is to add calendar items to the Katana DLX we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until we have added a test lunch appointment for the following day with a reminder 15 minutes before. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Katana DLX took an average of 15.22 seconds to add our sample calendar item. This is a solid time, about the same as the Sanyo M1 and faster than the Nokia N75 or Sprint Upstage. It is slower than the Krzr K1m or LG Chocolate VX8550, however. We found the Katana was relatively fast despite the fact we had to change the start time and reminder time manually. Using the keypad shortcuts for launching the calendar application helped us speed things up a bit.

Cell Phone Time (sec) Score
Sanyo Katana DLX 15.22 6.57
Nokia N75 19.20 5.21
Sprint Upstage 26.46 3.78
Motorola Krzr K1m 9.58 10.44
Sanyo M1 16.00 6.25
LG Chocolate VX8550 6.48 15.43

Calendar Views (4.3)

The Katana DLX provides four different calendar views. The default is the monthly view, which shows you the current month. You move amongst days using the directional pad. The current day is outlined by a box and any day that has an appointment is indicated by a small arrow. When you are highlighting a day with an appointment a list of that day's appointments appears at the bottom of the screen.

The weekly view shows a grid with the seven days of the week along the top and hours along the left. Appointments are shown in the block of time at which they are scheduled. Only five hours at a time are shown, so you will need to scroll up or down to view hours outside the current view. When you have highlighted an appointment, or portion of an appointment, details for it are shown at the bottom.

The daily view is a simple list of appointments for that day. The first item is a shortcut to create a new appointment. You move up or down the list using up/down on the directional pad, while left/right move you to the previous or following day. You can get to the daily view by selecting any day in the monthly view; you can't get there from the weekly view, which seems a little strange to us.

In any view you can choose the left soft key and select schedule list to get an agenda-like view that lists all appointments in chronological order. This view is very similar to the daily view, only it isn't limited to that day's appointments. This is one of three views provided for the different types of items you can create in the calendar. Moving left/right on the directional pad will allow you to view the other two lists: call alarms and to-dos.

We find the calendar views on the Katana DLX to be fairly good for a regular phone. We're a little annoyed there's no way to switch to the daily view from the weekly view, however. We also found the information provided by the "tips" at the bottom of the screen in the weekly and monthly views are very limited, with only the time and title of the appointment. Smart phones will provide indicators for things like recurrence or reminders. Still, some phones don't even offer this little bit of information, so we're glad to have it. We do, however, find it unfortunate there's no way to filter your view by categories, even though you can assign categories to appointments.

Fields (7.5)
When you create a new calendar appointment on the Katana DLX up to nine fields can be filled in. These include standard items like title, start, and end times, but we were very happy to see more advanced fields like recurrence, priority, and category. You cannot set all-day events or notes, but the presence of any advanced fields is a step above most phones. Recurrence can be set to one of four different preset patterns: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly. We would have liked the option to have weekdays and weekends, as well. Categories aren't as flexible as you would like, as you have to choose from seven presets with no way to add your own. Still, despite these issues we find the fields on the Katana to be useful.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding To Do/Task (5.57)

We are very pleased to see the Katana DLX supported the creation of tasks. This is a feature missing from many handsets, including the LG Chocolate XV8550 and Motorola Krzr K1m. To test how easy it is to add tasks to the Katana DLX we timed how long it took to go from phone closed to setting a task reminding us to pick up groceries. We repeat this five times and take the average for our score. The Katana DLX took an average of 17.96 seconds to add a new task. This is an average time, just about the same as the Sanyo M1, which has a similar interface, and faster than the Sprint Upstage. It was just slightly slower than the Nokia N75. As with adding calendar appointments, we made great use of keypad shortcuts to speed up our time.

Cell Phone Time (sec) Score
Sanyo Katana DLX 17.96 5.57
Nokia N75 14.36 6.96
Sprint Upstage 28.28 3.54
Motorola Krzr K1m n/a - no tasks program 0.0
Sanyo M1 18.00 5.56
LG Chocolate VX8550 n/a - no tasks program 0.0

To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)

Just like the Sanyo M1, the Katana DLX does not have a separate tasks program. Instead you can create to-dos in the calendar program. The to-dos are listed on dates they are active along with any calendar appointments. There is a separate To Do list view which organizes tasks chronologically by due date. You can filter this view by category and you can prioritize tasks, although you cannot organize them by priority.

Fields (5.0)
When you create a new task on the Katana DLX you only have a few basic fields available. In addition to title and due date you can assign the task one of the same preset categories available for calendar appointments. You can also set the tasks priority and status. Some smart phones provide you with more advanced fields like recurrence, notes, and the ability to set a reminder for tasks, all of which the Katana DLX lacks. For a regular phone, though, the fields are sufficient.

Notes

Adding Notes (0.0)
Just like the Sanyo M1, the Katana DLX does not have any type of text notes application. We wish Sanyo had taken the opportunity to develop such an application for its phones in the time since the M1 was released. The lack of such an application leads us to give it a zero for several of these scores.

Note Interface (0.0)
No notes application.

Note Formatting (0.0)
No notes application.

Voice Memo (6.0)
The Katana DLX supports voice memos. The only limitation on how long voice memos can be is the amount of storage available on the device. You can save voice memos to either the phone's internal memory or to a Micro SD card. None of the buttons will launch the voice memo application automatically, however if you hit the shortcut key on the side you will get a short list of multimedia applications, of which Voice Memo is third. Using this shortcut we were able to create a voice memo fairly quickly.

When in the voice memo application you can choose to record a voice memo, see a list of existing voice memos, or record a phone call using the screen call feature. This last option is not often found on phones, and we're very happy to see it. When viewing a list of voice memos you are given a good selection of options. The left soft key plays the selected item, while the right soft key opens a menu. From the menu you can choose to edit the voice memo's title, send it via Bluetooth, delete it, resort the notes, or filter them by type. We're very happy with the range of functionality available in the Katana DLX's voice memo application.


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