Almost a rerun of the Katana phone launched last year, the Sanyo Katana II sports just a few minor changes. Mostly, the new handset is a bit lighter and a little sleeker-looking—but everything else pretty much remains the same. Sprint subscribers looking for an inexpensive yet stylish voice phone won't mind.

The original Katana combined a thin body with Sanyo's strong reputation for quality and reliability. You'll find these qualities here too. The Katana II is a flat phone with somewhat sports-car-like lines and a dull but versatile color screen on its outside. Flip the device open to find a 320- by 240-pixel main screen—high-res for a low-end phone—along with flattish but well-separated keys and a dedicated speakerphone button. Though about the same size as its predecessor, the 3.1-ounce Katana II is 0.3 ounces lighter.

As for snazzy features, well, you can fuhgeddaboutit. Yes, there's a novelty-value-only VGA camera and a real Web browser, the Access NetFront browser. But this is mostly a voice phone. Reception for phone calls is good, though not quite as solid as on my beloved Sanyo SCP-8400. Also, rural users be advised—Sprint has removed analog service from this Katana. Call quality is pleasing, however, and like other Sanyo phones, the Katana II gets quite loud, though, like the original Katana, it tends to distort voices somewhat at top volumes. Ringtones are limited to scratchy, low-quality MP3-esque purchased ringtones. Though the phone has a vibrate mode, mine, weirdly, did not vibrate at all. The phone supports mono Bluetooth headsets as well as mono—but not stereo—wired headsets that use a 2.5mm plug. Voice dialing is the old-school, recorded-tags-only version. The nearly four hours of talk time measures up well against the original Katana.

The Katana II, oddly, supports fewer Java features than the original Katana. For example, the JBenchmark 3D tests didn't run on the new phone, but its Java application speeds were just about the same as the original Katana's, and the 145-MHz ARM9 processor should provide relatively good gaming performance. The 21MB of memory leaves plenty of room for games and photos. Opera Mini runs just fine, though, because this is a CDMA 1X speed phone, Internet connections are much slower than on EV-DO handsets. You could also download the free Flurry Java app for e-mail if you want to, but native IM clients weren't available at this writing. You have the option of using the phone as a Bluetooth modem on Sprint's dial-up-speed 1X network, but you can't transfer photos or ringtones over Bluetooth.

The big difference between now and last year, when the original Katana was released, is that Sprint now has a Motorola RAZR—which competes directly with the Katana. Sprint's RAZR, the V3m, is being sold for the same $49 and has a bunch more features, including a better camera, a memory card slot, and Sprint TV. I also like the RAZR's metallic feel more than the Katana II's plastic. That aside, Sanyo's reputation for voice quality is legendary, so I'm comfortable recommending the Katana for folks looking for a thin, voice-only phone.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous talk time: 3 hours 52 minutes
Jbenchmark 1: 3848
Jbenchmark 2: 205

Compare the Sanyo Katana II with several other mobile phones side by side.