Conclusion
I recently reviewed the
LG Fusic for Sprint and found it to be a winner of a multimedia phone. The Fusic is compact, stylish, and features a solid music player with external controls and a 3.5mm stereo headset adapter for compatibility with high-quality standard headphones. While the Sanyo M1 trumps the Fusic in every department on the spec sheet, it doesn't deliver as good an overall experience mainly due to its styling.
The M1 falls into a bit of a gap between super slim, super stylish "mid range" phones with 1-megapixel cameras and music players and high-end phones with 3 MP cameras, WiFi connectivity, and smartphone features. With its 2MP camera and 1GB of embedded memory, the M1 basically offers "a little more" of the same things phones like the LG Fusic and VX-8500/8600, and Motorola V3m RAZR and K1m KRZR do, but not as much as multimedia powerhouses like the Nokia N73 or Sony Ericsson K790. That wouldn't be a bad thing except for the fact that the M1's styling is so chunky and unappealing to the mass market.
With mobile phones truly becoming more like "multimedia computers" every day, all but the cheapest of current cell phones offer some form of camera and music player. It's the inclusion of "exotic" features like WiFi connectivity, a 3-megapixel or better camera, and smartphone functionality - or eye-catching high style design - that really set certain handsets apart from the pack. Sanyo has built a solid multimedia handset in the M1, but unfortunately they didn't go far enough in the features department to offset some poor design decisions. If it was thinner and lighter, the M1 might prove a winner for Sprint. As it is now, it's hard to imagine this phone catching on in a world of ultra-chic slim phones.
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4.5
