Audiovox 8910 Cell Phone
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- Installed Memory: 32 MB
- Connectivity: USB
- Performance: Dual Band
- Design: Mobile
- Style: Clamshell
- Network Type: CDMA 1900 AMPS CDMA 850
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The Audiovox 8910 - An Entry level Picture Phone with Flash and Lots More....
Pros
Price, camera w/flash, reasonably intuitive controls, speaker phone, many other features
Cons
Mediocre camera, difficult to access data on the phone
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
You won't go too far wrong with this phone no matter what your need is, covers all the basics well enough, but excels at few.
The AudioVox CDM 8910 cell phone is an entry level tri mode CDMA camera phone (with flash) offered by many cellular providers, including Verizon, Virgin Mobile (as the Audiovox Flasher V7) and Alltel, who is my family's cellular service provider. Even though this is usually one of the least expensive phones available, it offers enough features to catch the attention of most gadget lovers. I purchased two of these phones last year as Christmas gifts for my teen age children, and added them to my cell phone contract. Alltel offers an attractive family plan which let me add additional users for $10 each a month, not including instant messaging or other "extra's".
In the box we received the cell phone, wall charger, battery, user manual, clip on belt holster and a small hand strap. A fairly good 120 page manual is included, and it covers all the basics, but not in great detail. The manual also lacks an index. I charged the phones before wrapping them (Christmas gifts), and my children were able to start using the phones immediately after opening the packages.
Overview
The Audiovox is a traditional flip phone, weighing just under 4 ounces, and measuring slightly less than 4" X 2" X 1". The phone feels a little too small in my hand, but the buttons are big enough for me to use easily, and no problem for my children. The phone has two displays, a 1.8" (about 1 1/8" X 1 3/8") 65,000 color LCD display inside and a ?" X 5/8" monochrome display on the outside.
With the phone closed, you see the monochrome display on front, displaying time and date. On the left side of the phone is a volume adjust rocker switch. If you're not in a well lit environment, touching this volume button (or any other) also turns on the back light of the which ever display being viewed. Also on the front is the flash and camera lens. There is also a shutter control button near the volume switch, allowing you to take pictures when the camera is closed, previewing the shots on the external monochrome display. (When the camera is open, you'll preview shots with the color display, and control the shutter with a button on the keypad).
The phone also has a 3" retractable antenna, earphone jack, recharger jack, and a connection port of a data cable (not included). The phone feels solidly built.
When you open the phone, initially you'll be pleased with the quality of the display, which looks very good most indoor lighting, though it washes out in bright sunlight. The buttons on the numeric key pad are large enough to use easily, though the navigational D-pad above the keypad is a little too small small for my tastes. The ringer volume is no more than adequate at maximum volume, and the vibrating alert option is not much better. Both combined might not get your attention in a loud environment, say a football game or construction site. The controls are intuitive enough that most users will be able to navigate the menus to find any option they want.
Using the Camera
Though you can take pictures with the phone closed, most will be taken with the phone open, using the color display to frame your shot. The camera controls are mostly intuitive and easy to use.
The D pad button above the keypad controls the camera. Pushing it once brings up a camera menu (take picture, view pictures, photo message, help). Choosing "take picture" previews your shot on the color display. The resolution is adjusted using the up/down buttons on the D pad (160 X 120, 320 X 240, or 640 X 480). At the lowest resolution, you can digitally zoom in up to 4 X using the left/right D pad buttons. At the highest resolution, no zoom is available.
Pushing the center button again takes the shot. After that, you can save the shot, or email it to someone. The phone's memory is generous, allowing us to save up to about 50 high res shots, or 100 low res shots. Navigating the phones menus allows you to turn the flash on or off, and adjust a few other settings, contrast, brightness, and quality of the shots, but I find that these make little difference in the actual quality of the images. The flash does help in situations with indoor lighting, up to range of no more than 2 feet. With flash, the images have more accurate colors, and more details are clearly depicted.
At its best, using the highest resolution, bright lighting, and shots taken of items only 18-24" away, this camera takes pictures that are almost good enough to be worth printing on 4" x 6" photo paper. Even these pictures contain some noise, and look downright grainy when viewed full screen on your monitor. Pictures taken at lower resolution are only suitable for viewing on the phone's display, or emailing to a friend's phone. But considering the price of this phone, and once you understand its limitations, its occasionally handy to have around.
As purchased, there is no way to get the pictures you take off the phone, other than to send them to another phone or email address using your cell phone provider's service. Alltel offers a package for an additional $6 per month per phone that allows you to send 300 text or picture messages each month to other cell users or to any email address.
You can buy USB cables for this phone on ebay and other web stores. With this cable, and an application like Bitpim, you can download images off the phone to your PC. ( BitPim is a program that allows you to view and manipulate data on cell phones. This includes the PhoneBook, Calendar, WallPapers and RingTones, as well as the embedded filesystem (for expert users).…..quote from the Bitpim help files. Bitpim's developers do not recommend manipulationg data on the 8910, as it is too fragile, but I have used it to find and download image files from the phone directly to my PC. More info on how to do this can be found here: http://tutorials.thephonemall.net/aud8910pic.htm . If you intend to use Bitpim with this phone, you'll need to follow these directions meticulously.)
Using the Phone
As a camera, the Audiovox 8910 is a little disappointing. But as an entry level cell phone, it looks pretty good. Sound quality is excellent. Reception is never a problem for us. We live an a medium sized city, and travel out of state 3-4 times each year, and we seem to get good service no matter where we're at.
Talk time is rated at 3 ? hours, which we can achieve with this phone. Standby time is rated at a week, which is believeable, though we never go that long without using the phone.
The Audiovox 8910 offers two options for entering text, for sending text messages or saving text memos on the phone. One is strictly a "enter a letter at a time method" using the numeric keypad. Push the 2 key once to enter an a. Push it twice to enter a b. Three times for c. There is also a predictive text mode, where only push each keypad once for each letter, (ie push the 2 key three times to enter the word "cab"), and then the phone uses its library to guess the word. This works suprising well. There are also several "quick text" messages saved in memory, for example, "Lets Meet" or "Thanks" or even "Would you like to join me for a date?".
The 8910 allows you to store a lot of info in your phone book for each person, including 5 phone numbers, a email address, ringer sounds, graphics and pictures, and memo's. Entrys in the phone book can be assigned to groups, like family. The phone book reportedly will hold between 300 and 500 names, though we have only a few dozen in our phones. The phone book can be quickly accessed, with only two taps on the up key on the D pad.
The speakerphone works pretty well, but its just barely loud enough for me to use in traffic or on a noisy highway. The phone also offers voice recognition for calling up numbers, though we've not used this feature.
In addition to add-on services like instant messaging, the 8910 offers lots of other revenue opportunities for its service providers. The polyphonic ringer is very "musical" and you can buy plenty of great sounding ringtones. Similarly, games are available for download, typically as a 1 month rental for $1-$3, or a $6-$9 purchase. Wallpapers for the color LCD screen are also available. The 8910 is also capable of accessing Alltel's mobile web service ($ 6/month) which we had for several months. The web service is good if you want to keep up with sports scores, or perhaps check movie times, but its too slow and tedious to use to look up many of the things you might want to find, such as a restaurant's menu, or an address.
Conclusion
The Audiovox 8910 is available for only a few dollars with most cell phone plans. It's a phone that is a a little above average overall, but doesn't really excel anywhere, except when you consider the overall excellent feature set included for this price range. It's a great choice for teen agers and home users, but I'd think business users and serious travelers would want a phone with louder ringers or stronger vibrating alerts, Bluetooth options, a better (ie louder) speakerphone, and a larger screen.
In the box we received the cell phone, wall charger, battery, user manual, clip on belt holster and a small hand strap. A fairly good 120 page manual is included, and it covers all the basics, but not in great detail. The manual also lacks an index. I charged the phones before wrapping them (Christmas gifts), and my children were able to start using the phones immediately after opening the packages.
Overview
The Audiovox is a traditional flip phone, weighing just under 4 ounces, and measuring slightly less than 4" X 2" X 1". The phone feels a little too small in my hand, but the buttons are big enough for me to use easily, and no problem for my children. The phone has two displays, a 1.8" (about 1 1/8" X 1 3/8") 65,000 color LCD display inside and a ?" X 5/8" monochrome display on the outside.
With the phone closed, you see the monochrome display on front, displaying time and date. On the left side of the phone is a volume adjust rocker switch. If you're not in a well lit environment, touching this volume button (or any other) also turns on the back light of the which ever display being viewed. Also on the front is the flash and camera lens. There is also a shutter control button near the volume switch, allowing you to take pictures when the camera is closed, previewing the shots on the external monochrome display. (When the camera is open, you'll preview shots with the color display, and control the shutter with a button on the keypad).
The phone also has a 3" retractable antenna, earphone jack, recharger jack, and a connection port of a data cable (not included). The phone feels solidly built.
When you open the phone, initially you'll be pleased with the quality of the display, which looks very good most indoor lighting, though it washes out in bright sunlight. The buttons on the numeric key pad are large enough to use easily, though the navigational D-pad above the keypad is a little too small small for my tastes. The ringer volume is no more than adequate at maximum volume, and the vibrating alert option is not much better. Both combined might not get your attention in a loud environment, say a football game or construction site. The controls are intuitive enough that most users will be able to navigate the menus to find any option they want.
Using the Camera
Though you can take pictures with the phone closed, most will be taken with the phone open, using the color display to frame your shot. The camera controls are mostly intuitive and easy to use.
The D pad button above the keypad controls the camera. Pushing it once brings up a camera menu (take picture, view pictures, photo message, help). Choosing "take picture" previews your shot on the color display. The resolution is adjusted using the up/down buttons on the D pad (160 X 120, 320 X 240, or 640 X 480). At the lowest resolution, you can digitally zoom in up to 4 X using the left/right D pad buttons. At the highest resolution, no zoom is available.
Pushing the center button again takes the shot. After that, you can save the shot, or email it to someone. The phone's memory is generous, allowing us to save up to about 50 high res shots, or 100 low res shots. Navigating the phones menus allows you to turn the flash on or off, and adjust a few other settings, contrast, brightness, and quality of the shots, but I find that these make little difference in the actual quality of the images. The flash does help in situations with indoor lighting, up to range of no more than 2 feet. With flash, the images have more accurate colors, and more details are clearly depicted.
At its best, using the highest resolution, bright lighting, and shots taken of items only 18-24" away, this camera takes pictures that are almost good enough to be worth printing on 4" x 6" photo paper. Even these pictures contain some noise, and look downright grainy when viewed full screen on your monitor. Pictures taken at lower resolution are only suitable for viewing on the phone's display, or emailing to a friend's phone. But considering the price of this phone, and once you understand its limitations, its occasionally handy to have around.
As purchased, there is no way to get the pictures you take off the phone, other than to send them to another phone or email address using your cell phone provider's service. Alltel offers a package for an additional $6 per month per phone that allows you to send 300 text or picture messages each month to other cell users or to any email address.
You can buy USB cables for this phone on ebay and other web stores. With this cable, and an application like Bitpim, you can download images off the phone to your PC. ( BitPim is a program that allows you to view and manipulate data on cell phones. This includes the PhoneBook, Calendar, WallPapers and RingTones, as well as the embedded filesystem (for expert users).…..quote from the Bitpim help files. Bitpim's developers do not recommend manipulationg data on the 8910, as it is too fragile, but I have used it to find and download image files from the phone directly to my PC. More info on how to do this can be found here: http://tutorials.thephonemall.net/aud8910pic.htm . If you intend to use Bitpim with this phone, you'll need to follow these directions meticulously.)
Using the Phone
As a camera, the Audiovox 8910 is a little disappointing. But as an entry level cell phone, it looks pretty good. Sound quality is excellent. Reception is never a problem for us. We live an a medium sized city, and travel out of state 3-4 times each year, and we seem to get good service no matter where we're at.
Talk time is rated at 3 ? hours, which we can achieve with this phone. Standby time is rated at a week, which is believeable, though we never go that long without using the phone.
The Audiovox 8910 offers two options for entering text, for sending text messages or saving text memos on the phone. One is strictly a "enter a letter at a time method" using the numeric keypad. Push the 2 key once to enter an a. Push it twice to enter a b. Three times for c. There is also a predictive text mode, where only push each keypad once for each letter, (ie push the 2 key three times to enter the word "cab"), and then the phone uses its library to guess the word. This works suprising well. There are also several "quick text" messages saved in memory, for example, "Lets Meet" or "Thanks" or even "Would you like to join me for a date?".
The 8910 allows you to store a lot of info in your phone book for each person, including 5 phone numbers, a email address, ringer sounds, graphics and pictures, and memo's. Entrys in the phone book can be assigned to groups, like family. The phone book reportedly will hold between 300 and 500 names, though we have only a few dozen in our phones. The phone book can be quickly accessed, with only two taps on the up key on the D pad.
The speakerphone works pretty well, but its just barely loud enough for me to use in traffic or on a noisy highway. The phone also offers voice recognition for calling up numbers, though we've not used this feature.
In addition to add-on services like instant messaging, the 8910 offers lots of other revenue opportunities for its service providers. The polyphonic ringer is very "musical" and you can buy plenty of great sounding ringtones. Similarly, games are available for download, typically as a 1 month rental for $1-$3, or a $6-$9 purchase. Wallpapers for the color LCD screen are also available. The 8910 is also capable of accessing Alltel's mobile web service ($ 6/month) which we had for several months. The web service is good if you want to keep up with sports scores, or perhaps check movie times, but its too slow and tedious to use to look up many of the things you might want to find, such as a restaurant's menu, or an address.
Conclusion
The Audiovox 8910 is available for only a few dollars with most cell phone plans. It's a phone that is a a little above average overall, but doesn't really excel anywhere, except when you consider the overall excellent feature set included for this price range. It's a great choice for teen agers and home users, but I'd think business users and serious travelers would want a phone with louder ringers or stronger vibrating alerts, Bluetooth options, a better (ie louder) speakerphone, and a larger screen.
