The newest telephone in the Sprint PCS lineup is filled with features that have made it my favorite advanced digital telephone.
The Touchpoint phone has terrific sound quality, a huge LCD screen with 6 lines of text, a silent vibrating ring option, and three days of standby time.
The phone fits well in my hand, has a flip-lid that protects the keypad, and has a comfortable headset that sounds great not just for me, but also for the person that I'm calling. All of this in a phone that's extremely lightweight - just 5.2 ounces.
Practically every digital telephone on the market provides caller ID for incoming calls. The Touchpoint is the first phone I've seen that does something intelligent with this information. Using caller ID, you can set up different rings for different phone numbers. You can also set up a generic ring for calls that have caller ID and a second one for those that are private. This lets you know who is calling before you even look at the phone.
Another thing I like about the Touchpoint is the big sliding power switch on top of the phone. Call me old-fashioned, but I like real switches. It's easy to know when you have turned the phone on or off.
When it is time to charge the phone, you have a choice: You can either plug it into the AC power adapter, or you can drop it into the included desk-top charger.
The Touchpoint's big screen means that a lot of information can be displayed at the same time. Normally, the phone shows status on the top and a three-line menu on the bottom. You can step through the menu by using the four-way rocker switch, a device that Sprint, in its marketing literature, likens to a mouse. The menu structure is pretty standard - in fact, it's virtually a clone of the Nokia 6100-series phones being sold by AT&T and CellularOne.
Unfortunately, while this phone does quite well, its designers have missed a few important features. For example, you can set the phone to ring or vibrate when there is an incoming call, but you can't make it vibrate first, and then ring if it is not answered. This is a handy feature that my two-way pager has but that seems to have escaped most cellular telephone designers.
Another problem is that the phone's big OK button is used both to place telephone calls and to terminate them.
The Touchpoint, which is based on Qualcomm's CDMA technology, is the first phone that lets you store multiple phone numbers for a single person - you can type in the person's home, work, and mobile numbers. Reportedly Sprint will soon be releasing a piece of software and a cable that will let you download phone numbers from your computer into the phone.
In the past I've been a little down on Sprint PCS for its spotty coverage and its billing problems. My mother, for example, recently bought a Sprint phone that was mis-programmed. She spent five months trying to get the problem resolved, during which time she was billed for each month's service.
The good news is that more cell sites are going up in the Boston area and the company is working hard to get its billing problems under control. My mother, for instance, was eventually credited the back dollars and given a free phone for her trouble.
So if you are in an area that has good Sprint service and you are looking for a digital phone, you might want to consider the Touchpoint. I think it's great.
SIMSON L. GARFINKEL
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