Philip Berne puts Sanyo's new rugged Direct Connect phone through its paces, in our in-depth Sanyo Pro 700 review.
Review summary of the Sanyo Pro 700:
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 If you're looking for a walkie-talkie phone, the Sanyo Pro 700 is the one to buy. It's plenty rugged and it packs all of the Nextel Direct Connect features you need, but best of all it brings the Nextel lineup into the modern age with a polished interface and some great modern features. GPS is a nice addition, and we were happy that the rugged shell didn't interfere with navigation (though cell phone reception was a different issue). A wealth of messaging options and a quick, though basic Web browser were also surprising finds. We definitely prefer this phone to its recently-released sibling, the Sanyo Pro 200, and on such a rugged device we're willing to forgive the bulldog face. Release: June 2008. Price: $90.
Pros: Rugged on the outside, refined on the inside. Loads of features, including GPS and lots of messaging options.
Cons: When reception dips, so does call quality. Direct Connect doesn't work outside of EV-DO Rev. A coverage.
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Full Sanyo Pro 700 Review:
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Design - Good
The Sanyo Pro 700 is a rubbery, rugged walkie-talkie phone, which means it was very fun to review. We dropped it down a flight of stairs, made calls outside in the rain and generally beat on it as best we could without damaging our loaner unit, and the phone worked well through all of our trials. It's not an attractive phone, but compared to its sibling, the Sanyo Pro 200, it's much more durable, so we're more accepting of the boxy design. Like the old joke about Volvos, the Sanyo Pro 700 is "boxy, but good."
If the rugged design were the only standout feature for this phone, it wouldn't stand out from the Nextel Direct Connect pack as much as it does. But Sanyo also brought a very colorful, well-organized interface to the walkie-talkie party, and this phone instantly became our Direct Connect favorite as soon as we turned it on. The 1.9-inch screen is bright and clear, and the phone has a much more contemporary feel to it, as opposed to previous Direct Connect phones we've seen, like the Motorola ic502, that seem antiquated by comparison.
Calling - Good
With it's Direct Connect walkie-talkie features, the Sanyo Pro 700 is made for talking. The speakerphone is very loud. We had little trouble having a conversation while driving on the highway with our windows rolled down. Unfortunately, voice quality and reception were something of an issue, which can also affect the phone's features. In New York City, we got a solid 3-4 bars of reception on the phone, and calls sounded nice and clear. Direct Connect connections also went through without a hitch. As we moved west, into the suburbs, our reception dropped precipitously. We were usually still under EV-DO Rev. A coverage in Morristown, New Jersey, a large suburban town, but when EV-DO dropped out, so did Direct Connect. For that matter, even plain old voice calls had static issues and significant dropout problems when reception dipped to its lowest point.
For calling features, the phone has a good-looking address book with just enough fields to keep us satisfied. Not enough for business power-users, but it was easy to create groups and party calls over the Direct Connect network. You can assign voice tags for dialing, which is nice, but we always prefer speaker-independent voice dialing. The phone's Bluetooth had no trouble connecting to a variety of devices.
Messaging - Good
For a phone so focused on push-to-talk, we were truly impressed by the wealth of messaging options available on the Sanyo Pro 700. Don't get us wrong, this isn't the Sprint Mogul we're dealing with, but the phone does come loaded with options for most of our favorite instant messaging and e-mail clients, including Gmail. The actual messaging clients were nothing special, but having these options on a walkie-talkie phone is, so far, a bonus.
The Sanyo Pro 200 and the Sanyo Pro 700 (compare) have different keyboards, and we preferred the more rubbery keys of the Pro 700 to the more flat, polished keypad on the Pro 200, but not by much. The phone doesn't have a camera, so MMS messaging is out, but there is a dedicated "Text" button for SMS messages, another pleasant surprise.
Navigation - Very good
The Sanyo Pro 700 has a GPS sensor tied to Sprint Navigator for driving directions, and we were impressed with how quickly the sensor found us. The extra padding on the Pro 700's exterior didn't seem to diminish the sensor's capabilities in the slightest. The faster networking speeds also meant that maps loaded very quickly, and the entire experience was very good. GPS should be a useful feature for the Direct Connect audience, and we were happy to see that the hardware is able to keep us.
Web browsing - Mediocre
The Sanyo Pro 700 uses the Access NetFront browser, a very basic-looking WAP browser. Pages were crammed onto the mobile screen and layout was out of sorts, but the Web experience was still usable in a pinch. The phone will accept the Opera Mini browser, which is much better, but you'll have to get it on your own. At the very least, the phone seems to benefit from the faster networking speeds, and even image-heavy pages like our homepage loaded quickly.
Price and availability
The Sanyo Pro 700 is available now from Sprint for $140 with a two-year contract agreement. A $50 mail-in rebate is available when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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