Sanyo MM-7400 review

Intro
Sanyo MM-7400 is the first Sanyo device I review and frankly it is one of the best phones I have seen. If you are just looking at its specification, you will not be impressed. Actually using the phone for several weeks is a completely different experience.

 
Design

MM-7400 next to Nokia 6600

Sanyo MM-7400 sports standard clamshell form factor. The camera lenses, flash, service light, several opening for the speakerphone and the external display are situated on the front of the phone. The front plastic cover can be changed also and your sales package should come with a gray and red ones.

The edges of the phone are rubberized (Easy-grip) which makes it very easy to grip and hold. Ready-link and volume keys are positioned on the left side, while the camera and voice command keys are on the right. What I found a little bit uncomfortable was the too low position of the volume keys, which made it somewhat uneasy to adjust the volume. The 2.5mm external headset jack is located on the left side also. The charging port and the accessory ports are located on the bottom.

The phone felt very comfortable in my hands and the more I used it the more I liked the Easy-Grip rubber on the phone's edges. After some practice I even managed to perfect my one-hand operation of the shell. The actual shell opening and closing is accompanied by a very noticeable “CLICK” action and sound. All clamshell phones have certain mechanism which helps the user to open and close the shell. On the phone that I have tested so far, this mechanism kicks in usually at around 45 degree level. On the MM-7400 it kicks in at around 25 degrees when closing and at around 120 when opening. This is not a complaint; I actually liked it like that.

The external display is 64x64 with 65k colors. When in screen-saver mode it shows only the signal and battery meters, date and time and ready-link if it is available. Pressing any of the side keys activates the display.

MM-7400 keypad

MM-7400 keypad illuminations

Opening the clamshell reveals a large 176 x 220 65k TFT display. The display is just excellent – very bright with excellent brightness and color saturation. Below the display is the 5-way directional pad which has several pre-assigned keys for the phonebook, downloads, messages and My Shortcuts. There are also two soft-keys, a dedicated camera and a Back key. Below all those starts the actual keypad. The key-pad is overall well designed with good response. I would have liked it even more if keys were just slightly more raised. The directional pad plus the keypad is well illuminated in blue.