My Pantech Breeze is Easy, Breezy, Beautiful!

Introduction ~ Over the last 6 months, my rocky relationship with my LG had soured and it was time to move on. LG couldn't keep a charge and would shriek its high-decibel distress call directly into my ears every time I made or answered a call. Our breakup conversation went like this: It shrieked. I threatened to throw it out the window. It shrieked again. By then my ear drums were quaking... I threatened to turn LG off forever and never recharge it again. It gasped. I disconnected its heart and soul ~ my precious SIM chip will no longer reside in its twisted, shrieking corpse.

There, now, I feel better! Especially now that I have my pearly, practically opalescent Pantech Breeze cell phone. So far, it's more than dreamy for my needs. I chose the Pantech Breeze recently on a whim. I didn't need an IPOD-like device for listening to music, so that narrowed down my choices. Also, I liked the fact that it's not a dual flip phone (the kind that pre-teens drool over). I don't need a flip phone or a blackberry type device because, quite simply, I don't text message. In fact, I'm pretty slow just texting contacts into my address book, so I wanted a cell phone that would be easy to use and not easy to lose (i.e., too small to keep track of)!

Pantech Breeze ~ The Look & Feel

My Pantech Breeze is about 1.75 inches wide, 3.75 inches tall and 1/2 inch deep, with two color screens. Its pearly white, plastic body is lightweight and slender. My Pantech Breeze fits perfectly in my palm ~ Just Right, as Goldilocks would say. Its outer screen is less than an inch square, and stays dark when the phone's not in use (you can control the length of time it stays backlit). This tiny display shows the date, day and time in big, bold letters. I don't have to squint to read it! When I open my phone, the dimensions of the Home Menu screen are a fairly generous 1.75" by 1.25".  Eight decent photo/picture backgrounds come with the Pantech to use as wallpaper. The Pantech Breeze has two display fonts to choose from (I like the Freestyle font) and two sizes, normal or large. At the top of the screen, my Pantech Breeze shows the service strength, ring type, battery strength, and other settings. New messages are promptly noted on the display, with a simple option for listening to them. Also, the day, date and time are easy to spot in the upper right. The cell phone's Menu and Options reside in the bottom left and right corner. One unique feature for me are the three speed dial contact buttons marked 1, 2 and 3 underneath the screen. You can easily program these buttons to access one of your contacts, and dialing your dearest becomes a two-step process: press the speed dial button and then press SEND.

My Pantech Breeze has a typical cell phone keyboard layout, but I really love the buttons. The alpha-numeric keys, SEND, BACKSPACE and END are all slightly larger than average. All the buttons feel a little puffy or raised ~ you can feel the space between keys with your finger. In my experience, the Pantech's pillow key effect makes my typing more accurate. Also, I don't have to squint to read the large, bold numbers on the keypad! This should put off me getting bifocals for at least a few more years...

Above the alpha-numeric keypad you'll find some pretty standard features: Left and Right selection Keys, navigation keys (in a circular formation with the ENTER button in the middle). The Speaker phone key is a new feature for me, and allows me to talk without holding the phone too close to my head. I like that feature, because it gets me further away from those electromagnetic waves emanating from its fully charged core! The camera key is clearly marked like a camera, and brings up the Camera menu. You can easily take pictures or video with the Breeze, and send or manage your photo and video albums (more about that later).

Features I Love about my Pantech Breeze

Since I'm barely out of the cavewoman cell phone era, I really needed a phone that was easy to set-up and learn. If I could set it up without any prior experience, than pretty much your child could activate it too! I read the quick start guide carefully, though, and before I knew it had transferred the SIM card from my old phone and locked it into place, installed the battery (3/4 charged up) and made my first call. It was that easy and logical!

The Pantech Breeze comes with two software modes ~ Breeze Mode, which takes you through a shorter list of easy to navigate functions; and Advanced Mode, which is accessed through a grid of nine icons on the Home screen. Adding a new contacts was the main task I needed to do, and I needed to add ALL my contacts because they weren't saved on my old phone's SIM card. I found it simple and logical ~ I just pressed the DOWN arrow key and the contact screen popped right up like I predicted. There were a few contacts already entered in the memory, like CHECK BILL BALANCE and DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE. Also, PAY MY BILL is listed so there's no excuse for forgetting to do that. The UP and DOWN arrows scroll through your contact list, no surprise there. To add a contact, I needed to access the Address Book icon and press 2 for New Contact. You can choose to save the contact in your phone's memory or your SIM (transferable) memory. I like the idea of keeping my contacts on the SIM card, because it's a lot of work to retype them all, and it's probably inevitable that I'll need a new cell phone someday. 

Answering, Talking and Ring Tones 

Answering is easy, you can choose from several methods of taking calls. I like the OPEN phone method. However, I discovered that it's not easy to answer the phone when I'm carrying an item in one hand ~ it's not easy to flip open with one hand. With a little practice, I believe it's possible, but I haven't mastered that trick yet. I love picking out a cool ring tone, and the Pantech Breeze has no more than a dozen to choose from. I wasn't ecstatic about the choices, but there were a few pretty melodic ones. I refuse to purchase this kind of extra, so these Pantech tones are OK for me. As far as the sound quality goes, I think it's pretty clear. I've made quite a few local and long distance calls with it, and I haven't had any dropped calls or static/gibberish. The volume control is easy to maneuver on the side of the phone (but I do accidentally hit these keys sometimes). My only complaint is that, like my last cell phone, it's hard to cradle the phone on your shoulder to talk hands-free. I really need to order a head-set for that purpose. Finally, the phone includes a feature called FLIGHT MODE, which allows you to disable your phone while in the air, without having to turn it off. I actually tested this feature at my son's school play, and it's pretty neat. I like it because with my old phone, I would turn it off at performances and always forget to turn it back on.

Taking Photos ~ Easy or Not?

I'm still not ready to say I adore the camera apparatus on the Pantech Breeze. The camera lens is awkwardly located close to your index finger as you hold the phone upright in your hand. That means you need to make sure none of the fingers on your right hand are obstructing the lens, especially as you reach upward to snap the picture. I had to retake my first few pictures because that's what I did! What I DO like about the Pantech camera software is that, after you snap a photo, the options of what to do with your photo come up right away. It's easy to set the photo you took as wallpaper, or to attach the photo to one of your contacts. That's a cute option which is new to me with the Pantech Breeze. Also, you can adjust the brightness of the lens before taking a photo using the arrow pad. the maximum photo size is 640 x 480 pixels, which is just OK for me. You can also add special effects to your photos and videos like sepia, monochrome, negative or embossing.
 
Video~ Also a new feature for me, you can take a short video clip with sound just by choosing the video option #2. I didn't find the zoom feature was very effective, but the video camera is easy to figure out ~ even a kid could do it! The video quality is definitely grainy, but it's decent for a little clip to remember something by (for example, your child wearing her awesome Oompa Loompa costume at the school play). Again, my index finger tended to get in the way while shooting the video clip, so I need to watch out for that. Finally, the video camera stops recording at around 18-20 seconds, which is just long enough to capture a special moment and play it back later.

Battery Life ~ So Far, my Pantech Breeze needs recharging about every three to four days, and I keep it turned on continuously. This time will vary depending on how many options you use, and how quickly your screen powers down. A neat feature is the Battery Remaining screen, which tells you exactly how much life your battery has left ~ for example, 40%. That takes the guesswork out of looking at the battery power icon. Take Note: Video recording really depletes the battery quickly ~ I recommend using that feature sparingly if you're not near a charger.

Additional Features~ Some Are Useful and Free, Others Cost Extra ~ My Pantech Breeze comes with other features that I admit, I don't use often. It comes with a few "Demo" games: PacMan, Ms. PacMan, Tetris, Sudoku, and Solitaire. I don't have much patience for playing phone games (literally), and the point of them seems to me, to sell you the full version of the game. There are also quite a few options which require net-access or data plans on your service, like weather cast and Internet. So, I avoid them because I only have a basic, no-frills talking plan. Finally, there are a few other free features that users might enjoy: an alarm, a calendar you can customize with events, a notepad, a voice memo with playback (grocery lists anyone?), a length, weight, temperature, volume, and area units converter (calling all Engineers and Decorators), a world time zone chart, calculator and stop watch! Now, that's pretty cool :)

Final Recommendation ~ The Pantech Breeze has been a breath of fresh air to this non-techie cell phone user. I recommend it to anyone who wants an easy to use and cute phone, but doesn't need a dual-flip keyboard.  Actually, I learned a lot more about my phone by writing a review ~ the process forced me to check out all those options that I might otherwise have ignored. Happy Calling!