Sagem my220X

The my220X, the latest addition to Sagem's line-up of budget phones, is essentially limited to phone calls and SMS messaging over dual-band GSM. Its low price and simple interface make it a solid phone for a first-time mobile phone user or someone on a tight budget.

The phone's minimal feature set allows for an equally minimal design, resulting in a thin candy bar format that is quite fashionable. The my220X's keypad and navigation buttons form a one-piece design, which streamlines the phone's overall look. Unlike the my511X, this design works quite well and doesn't hamper entering a phone number or SMS.

The my220X's abandons Sagem's standard grid menu interface for a simple menu with six options. The menu is navigated horizontally using the five-way navigation buttons. The options allow the user to access call and SMS functions as well as some basic extras, such as a calendar, a calculator and currency conversion tools.

While this handset offers an improvement over recent Sagem phones we've tested, we found call quality to be inadequate. During our tests, the recipient claimed call quality was acceptable and clear for most part, but the phone's speaker accentuated mid-range frequencies, making the recipient's voice sound slightly muffled and a little unclear at times. This is a departure from Sagem's my511X, which had a very tinny, mechanical sound. Despite the difference between the two handsets, call sound quality is mediocre when compared to most other models on the market.

SMS messaging also revealed some problems. The addition of T9 predictive text input is welcome, and the one-piece keypad makes writing SMS messages an easy task. However, the keypad sometimes becomes unresponsive if a single word is longer than seven characters. This means that longer words have to be hyphenated or split up. This is seemingly an issue with the T9 dictionary's inability to predict some words. As there is no option to turn off predictive text, the issue could not be resolved.

The my220X's extras are unlikely to excite but do provide minimal functionality. The calendar simply shows dates and isn't combined with an organiser or "to do" function, which is disappointing. The presence of a calculator, currency converter and alarm clock may prove useful for some users.

Sagem's my220X is a simple phone. While it has some flaws in its core functionality, its minimal interface and low price tag make it a good buy.