Phone Calls

The Xphone works right out of the box. Charge it first (obviously!) and then just pop in your SIM card at the back of the phone. Nothing complicated to it at all. Switch on the phone and voila! You can start making and receiving calls.

There is only a single LED on top of the phone and it blinks every two seconds to indicate that your GSM radio is active. But when you are recharging the battery, the LED will light up with an orange glow which will turn green when fully charged. It also alternates between green and blue when Bluetooth is activated.

The four main features of the phone that I would use the most would be to make calls, receive calls, send SMS and receive SMS. I couldn't remember when was the last time I actually used it to play a game or to read an ebook. That's why it's important that the Xphone works well as a phone.

However, I found the speaker of the Xphone to be very bassy. On several occasions, I actually couldn't make out what the caller was telling me at all! She told me she could hear me loud and clear but all I can hear was some blur and bassy noise. Mind you - the call made was from a land line phone and reception was top-notch. Unless the person's voice is high-pitched, your hearing better be very good!

But seriously, the Xphone's speaker will not be unacceptable to some of you. Personally, it is rather unacceptable performance for a phone with a price tag of RM 1888 (USD 497) but what other choice do I have? Change to another phone? That's not an option...

Luckily, I can circumvent this problem by using the supplied stereo earphones. Using the earphones, I could hear the caller loud and clear.

The downside of using the supplied earphones is that they are only good for conversations. They sound bad when I try to play music or movies. The earphones lack bass and cannot replace a good pair of earphones for music listening. Incidentally, they did not use the regular earphone jack. Instead, they substituted it for a smaller 2.5mm jack. So, you will need to buy an adaptor should you decide to use another pair of earphones or output to an amplifier.

As far as signal reception is concerned, it's rare to get a dropped line, even when I'm in areas with poor coverage. Our telcos are pretty good, I assume. I even get a full bar during my recent excursion to Pulau Perhentian, on the east coast of Malaysia. Obviously they had a communications tower there.

However, there were several occasions when the phone just cut off during conversation. There was no sound at all but the call timer continued ticking away! Weird! I never could figure that one out. I doubt it's the caller's phone because it happens only to me. It could be the telco or it could be the phone. But my gut feeling tells me that the Xphone is the culprit.

I also noticed that the Xphone's radio is quite slow at picking up radio signals once it lost it. The Xphone takes an average of 12 seconds or more to regain the lost signal. Of course, this shouldn't pose any problem for you if you don't get many phone calls. But it will be very frustrating for those who get cut off in the midst of an urgent conversation!