Why You Can Trust CNET Sagem my401C review: Sagem my401C
The Sagem my401C is a fabulous-looking low cost phone with a host of extras, such as Bluetooth and a USB port. It's unbelievably easy to navigate through the menu system, is particularly light and small and has a built in MP3 player -- another added bonus
Costing just £30 on pay as you go, the Sagem my401C is currently the cheapest of Sagem's clamshell handsets.
Sagem my401C
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
It also boasts a pretty broad range of features for such a low-cost handset and comes with a surprisingly pleasing design, but is it enough to tempt hardcore Nokia and Sony Ericsson fans to make the switch?
Strengths
When it comes to ease of use, it's hard to fault the my401C. Anyone who's used a recent Sony Ericsson handset will find the clearly laid out menu system instantly familiar and features like texting are also a breeze to use.
Many of the budget flip phones make the mistake of going without an external screen, but thankfully there's no such issue here. The Sagem's external display is small and only black and white, but it's enough to show the name or number of an incoming caller and that's what's important.
The design is impressively handsome with the rounded edges and black and silver colour scheme giving it a surprising air of class for such a cheap mobile. As the phone is small and light, it's also comfortable to hold and feels well proportioned when you put it to your ear.
Call quality was generally good, although the speaker was crackily at times. Nevertheless, the phone tended to hang on to weak signals pretty well and the battery life was not too bad. You can expect to get around three hours 30 minutes of talk time and up to 10 days on standby.
Connectivity isn't bad either as Bluetooth is supported for wirelessly connecting it to a headset or car kit and there's a mini USB port to let you hook it up to a PC -- although Sagem doesn't actually include a USB lead in the box. The phone only has 13MB of onboard memory, but thankfully this can be easily expanded using cheap microSD cards, using to the slot hidden under the battery cover.
Weaknesses
It's impressive that the my401C has a built-in MP3 player, especially as it's such a cheap handset, but the MP3 player is pretty basic and certainly won't have you chucking your iPod nano in the bin. The main problem is that it doesn't let you browse music by the usual artist, album or song title categories. Instead, it just presents you with a list of file names making navigation through lots of tunes a real chore. Worse still, is the fact that Sagem doesn't include a pair of headphones with the phone.
The screen isn't wonderful either. It's brighter at the centre than it is at the right and left hand edges, which is rather off-putting at the start. In fact, the screen is probably the weakest area of the phone because the colours also look drab and murky.
The my401C is kitted out with a camera, but it has a very limited VGA resolution so the pictures it takes are extremely blocky and are only really of use as wallpaper for your phone.
Conclusion
The my401C is not the greatest handset we've ever come across, but it does have a good looking design and a surprisingly broad set of features for such a cheap mobile costing around £30 on pay as you go. As such, it comes recommend as a good bargain buy.
Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Jon Squire