Sanyo S750

Discontinued
7th December 2004

The Sanyo S750 has been known about for some time now, however all we've had until recently are a couple of grainy photographs and some basic specifications, but we now have a full set of details and some better quality photos. The S750 is due to launch on Orange 3G in France and the UK by the end of 2004 (which doesn't leave much time for them to get it into the shops).

Orange's 3G range at launch also consists of the Sony Ericsson Z1010, Samsung Z107, Nokia 6630 and LG 8150. Apart from the Sanyo, these are either all generally available 3G handsets, or close relatives to other ones, making the Sanyo S750 the only truly exclusive 3G handset in the Orange range.

We think that the phone is a bit of a mixed bag in design terms. The S750 is the only sliding 3G phone we can think of in Europe, but the slablike design is somewhat unappealing and reminds up of the first generation of 3G mobiles. The external antenna looks somewhat old fashioned too, and at 108 x 50 x 22mm and 122 grams it suffers from being on the large and heavy side, in common with other 3G phones.

Look past the cosmetic design though, and the Sanyo S750 is actually a pretty good handset. The main camera is a 1.3 megapixel unit with a flash, and there a second VGA resolution camera for video calling. The screen is a large 2.4 inch (6.1cm) TFT in 262,000 colours with a 240x320 pixel resolution.

The S750's software includes an MP3 and multimedia player, WAP 2.0 browser, email client, Java for games and other applications and a set of Personal Information Management functions. Internal memory is just 8Mb which is pretty insignificant, but this can be easily expanded using the SD card slot, but this does mean that you'll have to budget for an SD card when you buy it. You can connect the S750 to a PC or accessory with Bluetooth, and it also comes with infra-red and USB capabilities. Of course, this is a 3G phone, and it supports streaming multimedia downloads and video calling.

Outside of a 3G area, the Sanyo S750 will roam using tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) and GPRS for data. Talktime is around 3 hours with about 10 days standby, which is pretty good for a smallish 3G handset.

It's a nice phone from a technical point of view, and probably competes effectively with the Sharp 802. However, the styling details of the Sanyo S750 let it down in our view, and this is actually the least attractive handset in Orange's 3G lineup. Give the S750 a makeover (and tuck the antenna away) and you'd have a very nice phone indeed.