Verizon Wireless Escapade- Back To Dual Basics

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Attractive design, dual- CDMA/GSM mode, slim lightweight, 2-megapixel camera, GPS and Bluetooth.

Thumbs down: No micro SD slot i.e. non expandable memory.

Inside the trunk:

• Technology CDMA
• Band CDMA 800/850/1800/1900 (Quadband)
• Phone Design Flip
• Caller ID Yes
• Wireless Interface Bluetooth.
• Additional Features TTY compatible , VZ Navigator , Speakerphone , Voice command , GPS , Voice recognition , GPRS support , Voice dialing.

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS: It’s a basic flip phone offering global roaming, and it can use CDMA and GSM simultaneously. The first non smartphone to offer this service was the Samsung Renown, and this one by Pantech PCD follows in its league. However the Escapade is aimed at the international traveler who just wants to stay connected by making a few calls here and there and doesn’t need much of the exquisite features.

Razzle- Dazzle: I ve always found the flip phone design pretty enticing, and I personally loved the design of this one too. Available in dark maroon, the construction of this one seems to be pretty good. Measuring 3.9 inches long by 1.9 inches wide by 0.9 inch thick, the Verizon Wireless Escapade is pretty much sleek and slim. At 3.4 ounces this one is quite lightweight and fits in almost as snug as a rug in a bug in your hand. Also since it’s not quite huge it can be easily slipped into your pocket.

It’s got a 1.1-inch 65,000 color external display which shows the date, battery life, signal strength, time and caller ID. The volume rocker  and the headset jack sit comfortably on the left spine whereas the charger jack, camera key, and voice command key are placed on the right. Flipping the phone open reveals a 2” diagonal 176×220 pixel TFT display, with a support for 262k colours. The only complain I had with the display was that it didn’t have any kind of brightness controls which only means that the display could easily black out when under direct sun. Also the low resolution does very less to add anything to the display resulting in grainy images and pictures.

Directly below the display is the keypad. As you can see the keys are pretty much flat, yeah they are comfortable but aren’t good enough to dial by feel. The navigation array is also pretty much roomy and offers a good dialing experience.

Inside dope: The Escapade comes along with a 500-entry phonebook. Each entry can store upto 5 numbers, two email addresses an IM screen name and a street address. The other key features offered by the Escapade are multimedia messaging, speakerphone, calculator, calendar, world clock, notepad, unit converter and a stopwatch.

Apart from the basic features this one also offers Bluetooth, instant messenger, a web browser and GPS for the advanced users. The GPS service is supported by services like Chaperone and VZ navigator.

Coming to the cult feature of the Escapade i.e. dual mode CDMA/ GSM compatibility. When  you are in the  country you can use the Verizon wireless service, and when you are out of the country you could use the preloaded SIM card with any GSM carrier.

It comes loaded with a 2 megapixel camera which lets you click pictures in four resolutions 1,600×1,200, 1,280×960, 640×480, 320×240. The images were much to my surprise pretty much vibrant and animated. The image quality was pretty decent with hardly any noise. This one doesn’t come loaded with a camcorder though.

Talking about the most important feature for a basic phone, i.e. call quality. Quite unsurprisingly the quality of calls in this one was pretty good. The voice clarity was high and it almost sounded like I was using a landline telephone displaying hardly any amount of static or interference. On the callers end too, they were pretty much satisfied with the sound quality and hardly had any issues with it. The surprising difference that this one displayed in comparision to the other basic phones was that the sound quality over the speakerphones was also decent enough and did not sound much different from the sound heard from the headset.

The battery life that the escapade offers is not bad either with 3.8 hours talktime and 13.2 days on standby.

Nitty-gritty: The Verizon wireless escapade has some tough competition in the form of the Samsung Renown. Though this one is comparatively cheaper, the feature of the Samsung one is better. But as I said earlier this one is basically aimed at the traveler who just wants to make a few calls. So if you are one of them and you need a phone at good reasonable price then this should surely be your pick.

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