Sagem my511X

The my511X is Sagem's latest mobile phone, with standard features, but nothing outstanding for the retail price. Just 10mm thick, the phone is quite small and easily fits in tight pockets. However, the my511X has some major design and interface issues.

This Tri-band GSM phone's feature set is minimal, and it comes with a WAP 2.0 browser and a 1.3Mp camera. Not only are both of these features slightly outdated in comparison to equivalent phones, we found that they are hard to use on the phone's small 1.9in screen. Regular use may lead to eyestrain, especially given the screen's shallow 65k colour depth.

It has an elegant design and features a one-piece keypad resembling a touchpad. This worked to a degree; we only made a few mistakes when typing in a number or writing an SMS. The lack of tactile feedback and the plastic feel of the keypad made the phone uncomfortable to use after an extended period. The navigation buttons, while protruding, were small and hard to press.

The my511X's menu is functional and reminiscent of a Sony Ericsson menu, with a simple 3x3 grid layout of icons. The five-way navigation pad is easy to use, and accessing the handset's menu items is a simple process. Most items are accompanied by a simple tutorial to help users adjust to the phone's functions.

Call quality was not adequate. During some of our calls, the recipient's voice sounded very tinny which made conversations unpleasant to conduct. The recipient also complained that the signal was interrupted by static, and that the quality was inadequate for a lengthy conversation.

The included music player supports MP3 and AAC files, but only 10MB of internal storage is available. However, the phone also features a microSD slot and it worked in our tests with the 8GB micro-SDHC card we used. Using the music player isn't too difficult, though songs have to be added to the active playlist individually rather than as whole albums. The my511X has a side button dedicated to the music player, allowing users to bypass the menu. We found that the button became unresponsive once the phone went to sleep. The use of a proprietary connection instead of a conventional 3.5mm headphone jack restricts the user's choice of earphones.

The my511x had numerous connectivity issues that became irritating after extended use. Out of the box the phone's built-in Bluetooth has a cap of three minutes for visibility, asking the user to renew this once the three minutes has ended. If you change the setting to always-on, always visible the time cap no longer applies. During testing, we had some problems when attempting to connect to a Bluetooth-enabled laptop, but most mobile-to-mobile file transfers were problem-free.

Although there is a built-in camera, it is barely functional. With a resolution of 1.3Mp and no flash, the pictures we took during testing were grainy and unusable.

Despite its elegant appearance, Sagem's my511x has a number of flaws that prevent it from being an ideal mobile phone for everyday use.