Mobile Phone Haven

Kyocera have released the Kyocera Laylo M1400, an all-new CDMA, slider style cell phones. Kyocera addresses the phone as ‘a need for affordability and value in today’s challenging economy’.

The new Kyocera Laylo M1400, comes with comes in a vertical slider format and 94.7 x 46.7 x 17.0mm. The phone is quite light at just 90g, and sports a 2.2? QVGA resolution ‘contoured’ display for that ‘edge-to-edge screen viewing’, an integrated VGA camera, Bluetooth 2.0, a WAP 2.0 browser which is BREW 3.1.5 and JAVA enabled and, interestingly, then phone comes features a rear mounted slide-out self portrait vanity mirror. We guess that’s to impress the female lot.

Kyocera’s new Mako S4000 is actually a replacement for the K323. The phone sports a simple design with a thin, light profile (0.67 inches) and a decent midrange spec list. On the exterior there is a color display above which sits small speaker, which Kyocera claims is a unique touch. Flip it open and you’ll find a decent 262,000-color display with a silver finished keypad and navigation controls which are pretty user friendly.

Other features include Bluetooth, text messaging, MMS, voice commands, a speakerphone, standard organizer features, Bluetooth, and a WAP Web browser. The integrated VGA camera is a little disappointing considering how good the competition is these days. The phonebook too (250-contact) is a bit small. Although overall the phone is a decent midrange phone with great pricing.

MetroPCS today has launched a new slide-style CDMA mobile from ZTE and has decided to call it the Essenze. The phone includes standard features like Bluetooth, GPS navigation, and a basic VGA camera. It also features the ChatLINK walkie-talkie service which comes in quite handy. MetroPCS Essenze was first made known as the ZTE C70 in an FCC filing in June and is now available through metropcs.com for $99.