It features programmable shortcuts, e-mail, adjustable backlights and the ever so comfortable "softskin". All this for a bargain price? Read our Australian review to find out.
The Philips Fisio 620 is a lightweight, pocket-sized phone that is very comfortable to hold. It measures 104 x 46 x 20mm and weighs in at 85g. Enhancing the comfy feeling is a soft rubbery back case which Philips dubs "softskin". It feels peculiar at first, even slippery, but does prevent the phone from sliding from your hands. If you're not keen on the "softskin", you can choose the silver-blue version instead.
A groovy feature included on this mobile is a variable two-colour backlight. There are red and green backlights and you can choose a setting on a scale from one (green screen) to seven (red screen) with an amber colour in the middle. We found the green screen slightly brighter at night, but as red screen phones are not as common, we opted for the latter.
Up to 15 voice tags can be stored in the phone's memory and this amount is shared between voice dialling and voice commands. Voice commands can be recorded to activate specific functions such as 'send an SMS' or 'activate silence'. The same functions are also programmable as hotkeys, so that an extended press on certain numbers can save you the time of traversing the menu.
Two e-mail accounts can be set up on the phone with messages sent and received over your choice of GPRS or GSM. Attachments can also be viewed, providing they're either plain text, 24bit encoded JPEG, or an attached e-mail. There is a note in the manual that if the e-mail is over 10Kb, it is rejected and the download is cancelled. There is a wireless application protocol (WAP) hotkey to open the WAP browser if those services appeal to you.
Most of the nineteen tones that come pre-installed on the phone are classical compositions. The others are an interesting range of sound effects such as birdsong, raindrops and sonar. There is also a spot for another ring tone sent via SMS (from other Philips handsets or from the internet).
A big plus is the durable battery life, which Philips boasts at a maximum of 330 hours of stand-by or 4.5 hours of talk time. We switched on the phone at 4pm Wednesday and with normal usage the phone lasted 102 hours, finally conking out at 10pm Sunday. It took only 40 minutes to fully recharge the battery.
The five-way mini joystick has popped up on a number of phones since we first saw it on the Ericsson T68, and Philips has included one on the 620. Depressing the joystick brings up the menu, implemented through a carousel interface. You steer through a group of rotating icons with the joystick and depress to select a menu option. Traversing the animated menu seems a little sluggish--switching it off really speeds things up. The ring volume is adjusted simply by moving the joystick left or right. Moving the joystick up or down gives quick access to the recent call list, or the phonebook, respectively.
A minor problem we had when depressing the joystick was the phone interpreting this as a left or right movement.
When the phone is idle the screen displays a clock (digital or analogue), the date and a bunch of symbols representing current settings. To customise the phone, a screensaver is included which displays a slideshow of stored pictures. The default pictures are pretty uninspiring thus we soon tired of looking at pixelated images of swirls and restored the clock.
Conversations or voice memos can be recorded for up to 30 seconds. Another useful feature is the hands-free mode--in which the caller's voice comes through the loudspeaker clearly. During calls, you can choose between five equaliser settings to improve sound quality.
The organiser has been well implemented with three types of events able to be added (holiday, meeting or "to do"). Reminders for events can be set as well as recurrences (daily/weekly/monthly/yearly).
We noticed a bizarre bug in the recent call list with some names appearing in a mixture of English and Chinese characters. Another gripe we have is the inability to add custom words to the phone to use during T9 predictive text input--a must for all SMS junkies out there.
Just a step down from the colour screened Fisio 820, the 620 is an affordable and well-designed phone. Its programmable shortcuts will appeal to people who don't want to waste time scrolling through menus.
Fisio 620
Company: Philips Australia
Price: AU$349
Phone: 1300 651 993
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