CTIA 2009: Live Report

Most of the phones we have seen at the CTIA 2009 so far happen to be on the budget models. Kyocera is showcasing three phones (two of them branded as Kyocera and the other as Sanyo), all of them in the low-cost segment.




The SCP-2700 is the one we liked the best. It will be available with Sprint and is Sanyo’s first phone with a QWERTY keyboard and it shows. The keys are not separated well enough and since they are small, we think many people will be hitting the wrong ones way too often. On the other hand, the navigation keys are good sized – look how large they are.



All in all, the 2700 isn’t something that hit us right between the eyes, but we are positive about it. It has got decent features and good quality for a low-priced model and comes in cool colors – either blue or pink flower pattern.

Sanyo SCP-2700 Specifications






The Kyocera G2GO (Good to Go) M2000 is an ugly phone, really. It is yet another side-slider, but why the slider movement is that short we will never know. If it was like typical, it could have had a 4-row keyboard and you know – the more, the better. This explains away the rather small sized keys. In addition, they are also somewhat hard to press and without feedback, which makes for a rather uncomfy keyboard– Kyocera, shame on you! Another funny thing is that the numeric key characters are vertically aligned, so you won’t be able to read them easily while you hold the phone with its shorter side up or type any text.

We are not huge fans of front keys either. The D-pad looks OK but the other six keys are packed like sardines. The music buttons above the display are also rather small.



Finally, the build quality is below par even for a budget model – one can easily feel the slider moving sideways once it is opened. We hope Kyocera gets this fixed and comes up with a better keypad before its -not-so-Good-to-Go phone as of now phone hits the market.

Kyocera G2GO M2000 Specifications






We are also disappointed with the built quality of Laylo M1400– its body wobbles plus if you push the slider downward it locks instead of opening. On the other hand it is a nice phone, with good quality display, decent size and design. While we don’t like that the navigation keys are too low, the numeric ones didn’t give us any trouble. Once again, we hope the final units have better build quality.

Kyocera Laylo M1400 Specifications

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