Sanyo M1 Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 15, 2007 Comment on this |
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Supported Email Services (0.0)
The Sanyo M1 does not have a built in email client, instead using web based services through Sprint. Although this provides access to popular email clients such as MSN, Yahoo and AOL, it does not provide the functionality that a built in client would. For example you cannot read and write emails when you do not have network access. For this reason Wirelessinfo does not award points for purely web based email clients, thus the Sanyo M1 will not score any points in many of these sections.
Push Email (0.0)
The Sanyo M1 does not support push email, such as Blackberry Connect or Good.
Multiple Email Accounts (0.0)
No Email Client
HTML and Attachments (0.0)
No Email Client
Messaging Customization (0.0)
No Email Client
Time to a New Email Message (0.0)
No Email Client
Email Usability (0.0)
No Email Client
Supported IM Services (0.0)
The Sanyo M1 supports AOL, MSN and Yahoo instant messaging services via Sprint’s Instant Messaging software. Unfortunately each service will cost you $2.99 a month to access. We would have liked to see an instant messaging client that doesn’t cost you money to use, and don't award points for such services, but it's there if you wan't to pay for it.
MMS Support (7.0)
MMS on the Sanyo M1 is provided through their picture mail service. Unfortunately this means that the SMS and MMS client are separate, for example you cannot begin writing an SMS and then decide to throw in a media file. You can also send an MMS message from the album software on the phone, by choosing the send to contact function from the menu. Overall we felt the MMS support on the Sanyo M1 was average, on par with the support found on another Sprint flip phone, the Motorola Razr V3m.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
To test smiley face interpretation we sent the Sanyo M1 a test SMS with four common smiley faces. We were disappointed that the M1 did not convert any of these into pictographs, leaving them in their text format. The M1 does not better when sending smiley faces, not allowing you to insert them automatically but rather forcing you to type them out using text. For a phone that aspires to be a higher end device expected more from the M1.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (5.0)
The SMS and MMS programs on the Sanyo M1 are divided into two separate sections under the messaging menu. Within each there are folders for inbox, sent saved and pending. Entering one of the folders you find a simple list of messages. You can lock messages so they are not deleted, move them to another folder or sort them by name, unread/read, locked/unlocked or date. We were also pleased to see that you can print a message to a compatible bluetooth printer. You can send a message to single person or a contacts group. Overall we found the SMS and MMS applications straightforward but slightly clunky to use. We prefer messaging programs that group both types of messages together such as that found on the Treo 700p.
Time to New SMS Message (3.75)
To test how easy it is to send an SMS message we time how long it takes to go from standby to a new message dialogue. We repeat this test 5 times and take the average. The Sanyo M1 took an average of 2.67 seconds to complete this test. This is a very good score, outstripping the Motorola Razr V3m’s 4.58 seconds but coming in behind the Treo 700p’s excellent score of 1.4 seconds. We were pleased with the M1’s speedy time to a new SMS message, and note that this was possible even though the option was buried two menus deep.
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