Sprint’s latest Sanyo handset, the Katana LX, offers a unique design and bonus features such as GPS functionality, but Sanyo skimped on other areas that similarly priced $49.99 phones offer, such as 3G data speeds, a sideloading microSD slot, and support for Sprint’s over-the-air music store and video playback.
Design
The thin Sanyo Katana LX has a beautiful mirrored surface, and it’s available in black/silver, blue, and pink. When the phone is off or idle, the outer display is invisible, but once a call or message comes through, a 1-inch white OLED shows such information as incoming calls, signal strength, the time, and text message notifications.
Despite its blocky form, the Katana LX’s smooth edges make it comfortable to hold and use. It measures 3.7 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches and weighs 3.4 ounces, on a par with other clamshells on the market. The left side of the unit features volume controls, a charging port, and a camera quick-launch button. The right side has a 2.5mm headphone jack, but headphones aren’t included.
The interior offers a 2-inch display with a low resolution of 160 x 128 pixels, which was bright enough for our tastes. Just below the display are four silver buttons set in a semi-circle (two soft keys, camera, and Back) and a d-pad. The keypad is large and offered good feedback, although it is perhaps the ugliest feature on the device. The keys, which have a dim, green backlight, look like they were taken off a house phone from the 1990s.
User Interface
The Katana LX’ UI is basic, but it offers quick and easy access to most of the phone’s features. Inside the main menu are icons for Contacts, History, Messaging, Missed Alerts, My Content, Pictures, Settings, Tools, and Web. Our favorite feature is the customizable Favorites menu, which you can populate with a list of your most-used applications, Facebook, a favorite Web site, or the GPS application. You can access the favorites menu quickly by clicking the left soft-key inside the main menu. Perhaps the best feature of the Katana LX is its compatibility with Java applications, which you can download from Sprint, or from the Web. Given the vast number of available applications, this is a major plus for what is otherwise a fairly basic phone.
GPS
We downloaded the Sprint Navigation software, a 782KB file, in less than 1 minute. The GPS receiver took about 5 minutes to lock onto a signal; by comparison, the Samsung U550 took less than a minute. Given the phone’s low-res display, the GPS is quite useless on this handset. It offers only driving directions, so it’s not good for walking around town. It also wasn’t great at grabbing a GPS signal, so it’s unreliable while driving. However, it does offer directions to nearby points of interest, such as gas stations, hospitals, and restaurants.
Dell Laptops Starting at $449
