Panasonic X700
Discontinued 28th February 2004
The Pansonic X700 is essentially a straight
replacement for the Panasonic X70
and GD87 models and represents quite an improvement
in technical terms.
It's a tri-band phone supporting GPRS,
Bluetooth and comes with a built-in VGA resolution camera.
It runs the powerful Symbian 60 operating system, making
it a clever phone if not exactly a "smartphone".
In physical terms the phone is almost
identical to the X70, making it a fairly lightweight
clamshell with a 132x176 pixel display in 65,000 colours.
The phone is nicely laid out, especially on the outside
where it inherits the good looks from the X70.
Panasonic
have had some success with marketing their clamshells,
starting with the GD87. The X70 sold on account of it's
good looks, and Panasonic are in a strong position as
a manufacturer as they build most of the components,
such as the screen, battery and camera themselves.
However, when compared in technical
terms against something like the GX30
from arch-rival Sharp, then some of the technologies
look dated. By late 2004, when the X700 is likely to
hit the streets, the VGA resolution camera will be more-or-less
obsolete, and the GX30 trounces the X700 in terms of
screen resolution. There's no support for EDGE high-speed
data either.
On the other hand, most of the clever
stuff going on is in software. The X700 can edit Microsoft
Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, plus it supports
standard email protocols and has picture CLI, which
are all features the GX30 doesn't have. Although why
you would want to edit a PowerPoint presentation on
your phone is questionable.
The X700 takes miniSD memory cards for
extra storage, and supports Java, MMS and all the usual
features in this type of phone. However, our gut feeling
is that Panasonic have missed the mark with the phone's
basic features and concentrated too much on clever things
that most people won't want to use - if the X700 had
been launched in 2003 it would have been impressive,
but the strange mix of features will probably only appeal
to those who like the X700's good looks, or want to
struggle with Office applications while on the move.
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Panasonic
X700 Provisional Specifications
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Available:
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Q3/Q4
2004
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Network:
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Tri-band
GSM
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Data:
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GPRS
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Screen:
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132x176
pixels
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Camera:
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640x480
pixels
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Size:
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Compact
clamshell 87x47x24mm
/ 95 grams
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Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Infra-red:
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Yes
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Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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Battery
life:
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Unknown
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OS:
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Symbian
Series 60
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