Pros & Cons
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- Very loud speaker.
- Bright screen.
- Push-to-talk feature.
- Good battery life (4 hours).
- Excellent voice dialing.
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- Poor camera.
- Sprint TV service doesn't work well.
Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Phone MM-7400 by Sanyo Specs
| 802.11x/Band(s): | No |
| Bands: | 1900 |
| Bluetooth: | No |
| Camera Flash: | Yes |
| Camera: | Yes |
| Form Factor: | Flip Phone |
| High-Speed Data: | 1xRTT |
| Megapixels: | .3 MP |
| Phone Capability / Network: | CDMA |
| Physical Keyboard: | No |
| Screen Size: | 2.1 inches |
| Service Provider: | Sprint |
A little hard of hearing? Tired of wimpy cell-phone speakers? The Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Phone MM-7400 by Sanyo will wake the dead with its booming earpiece and speakerphone; it's one of the loudest phones we've ever tested. This quasi-rugged phone has plenty of other things to recommend it, too: a solid feel, terrific voice dialing, and a bright, sharp screen. Rubber accents around the edges protected it well enough in our drop tests. The buttons and menus are well marked, clear, and easy to press.
If the MM-7400's look reminds you of a Nextel phone, that's on purpose. The MM-7400 is a Ready Link phone, supporting Sprint's Nextel-like push-to-talk function. We're a little skeptical about Ready Link just because few people subscribe to it; we didn't have a second Ready Link phone with which to test the service.
Ready Link aside, the MM-7400 has several attractive features. The phone sports both digital and analog bands, so it'll work even out in rural areas off the Sprint network. (Make sure to sign up for Sprint's $5-a-month no-roaming-fees add-on plan.) The 4-hour talk time is about half an hour longer than most Sprint phones we've tested. The no-training speaker-independent voice recognition (which means anyone can speak and dial the phone) is excellent: you can dial names from your phone book or spell out numbers to call. You can use the external color screen for picture caller ID or as a second camera viewfinder. And the MM-7400 scored very well on JBenchmark's Java tests, boding well for Java game performance.
Oddly for a model with multimedia in its name, the MM-7400's weakest points are its multimedia features. The VGA camera has plenty of options and captures short videos in the common QuickTime format, but picture quality is awful; shots taken in our lab were blurry and bluish, with weird lighting effects. (Check out our
The MM-7400 supports both live MobiTV, which sends down TV feeds with slide-show-like slow-moving video, and Sprint's newer Sprint TV, which promises streaming video clips. But Sprint TV is so compressed it's unviewable. That's not the MM-7400's fault; it's because Sprint throttles its network too tightly to allow a clear, live video feed.
Sprint subscribers in our recent reader survey liked Sanyo phones, and the MM-7400 is another solid addition to that family. If you're looking for a Sprint Ready Link phone—or just for a solid-feeling, sturdy phone that is easy to listen through—you'll acclaim this phone loudly.
Benchmark results:
Jbenchmark 1: 3522
Jbenchmark 2: 176
Battery life: 3 hours, 59 minutes
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Final Thoughts
Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Phone MM-7400 by Sanyo
Whether on Sprint's digital network, in analog roaming, or in push-to-talk mode, this sturdy, solid phone sounds loud and clear.