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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 39 reviews
- See all user reviews
Product summary
The good: Large, vibrant display; smart layout; strong call quality; excellent battery life; world phone.
The bad: No external LCD; supports DoJA not J2ME.
The bottom line: The NEC 515 hits the spot for users who want a full-figured flip phone that delivers impressive performance.
Specifications: Band / mode: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband); Talk time: Up to 270 min; Weight: 3.5 oz See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 11/25/2003
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 Big design: While the NEC 515 may not have an external LCD, it has a sleek style. |
When you open the cover, however, you're presented with a striking 2.2-inch, 65,536-color display that's on a par with the one found on Panasonic's GU87. This viewing experience makes playing games or using applications such as the scheduler enjoyable. With the cover open, the unit expands to 7.25 inches in length, giving it the comfortable feel of a standard cordless phone (with the flip cover closed, the handset measures 3.94 by 1.87 by 1 inch). We also like the nice, solid click you get when opening and closing the cover.
The 515 isn't as stylishly slim as other handsets. But with its roominess comes plenty of buttons, including one-touch access to a context-sensitive Options menu and AT&T Wireless's mMode service. In standby mode, the four-way navigation key gives you access to the most recent received and missed calls, phone modes, and voice memos. The right-hand soft key accesses the message center, which includes voicemail and e-mail, as well as SMS, EMS, and MMS messaging.
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 Ready to beam: We appreciate that the phone has an IR port. |
The 515 also features a 100-entry to-do list and a 600-entry calendar. The handset's call logs provide more complete information than most units, including the time, date, and duration of your last 20 dialed and received calls.
An infrared port lets you sync organizer and phone-book entries between two 515s or any other phone or handheld with an IR port. If you don't have an IR port on your desktop, you'll need to purchase an option USB cable to sync with your Outlook contacts.
The 515 includes Java support for application and game downloads; the only catch is that it's DoJa, not the more widely available J2ME. This means you can download only DoJa apps--but no J2ME games and apps--which are available on the NEC Web site to the handset. The handset comes preloaded with two games, Star Diversion and Baseball, both of which look pretty impressive on the display.
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 Clunky design: Though the two-plug charger isn't ideal, this phone sure has a lot of power. |
We didn't have any trouble accessing mMode over AT&T's GRPS network or using any of its features, either. We downloaded pictures and visited several news and entertainment sites without incident. This is probably due to the dual processors in the phone; one is dedicated to phone-centric features such as calls, and the other is for everything else, such as playing games.
Battery life was just as impressive. We got about 5.25 hours of talk time, beating NEC's rating of 4.5 hours. We also beat the rated standby time of 8.5 days by a half day. Both are above-average ratings for a phone with a color display.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 39 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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