Panasonic X70 Review

Overall Rating

A colour mobile phone with a camera.

Pathetic battery life, Unstable software,
Terrible Bluetooth Compatibility and won't talk to Macs.

Well, where should I begin? I've had a Panasonic X70 for half a year now and I wish I had followed my instincts and gone for a Nokia or Sony Ericsson instead. But no, I wanted a clamshell design and I thought this was the one to get.

Stay well away from this phone. It is terrible. The battery life stinks and it will drop considerably after about two calls. The operating system is sluggish and constantly requires you to click "ok" to perform the simplest of tasks. The OS crashes all the time and one time I even lost all my voice dials for no apparent reason. After charging the phone, the camera doesn't work nor does the clam shell case display. Only a shutdown and restart will solve this one (rather like a Windows computer then). Unlike every other phone manufacturer out there, Panasonic have also decided not to enable their phone to work with iSynch, the fantastic piece of Apple software (yes I am a Mac fan). This is very short sighted of them.

When writing an SMS message it is very easy to wipe it without saving it. This has almost caused me to throw the phone against a wall on a number of occasions but the most downright out of order thing Panasonic has done is make sure that this handset only works with their own brand bluetooth headset. I bought this phone from Orange in the hope of using their money off offer on headsets but was told that non of the headsets available would work with this phone. This is not how Bluetooth is meant to work, it is meant to be a universal format and Panasonic are blatantly breaking this agreement!

Finally, it should come as no surprise that the camera is also terrible and the picture quality is appalling.

Do NOT buy this phone and do not buy any other Panasonic handset they are awful. I cannot wait until I can trade this piece of junk in for a new handset and next time it will either be a good old Nokia or a Sony Ericsson which is currently the most Mac friendly phone out there.

Members' Comments onsblakeley's Review

• oloonat on 18th Aug 2004

  I disagree on several points. The OS on my X70 has never crashed and I've had no charging relating problems. Most important is that the Bluetooth on it IS UNIVERSAL. I've paired it a South-Wing NeoVoice headset (the best and only 30 quid on eBay!!) and a Jabra BT200 too - sweet as anything with either. So Panasonic are not breaking any agreements there.
  
  I agree about the battery life being too short so I've bought a 840mAH battery off ebay for 5 quid. Texting is also a pain mainly because the keys are not suited to it. Oh, and the camera is really awful!
  Overall, got to remember this is NOT A NOKIA phone!! I must admit I too was enticed by the design more than anything but maybe in future I might be sticking to Nokia. No regrets though.
  
  It's an average phone with potentially major weaknesses for a Nokia user. Probably more suited to the light user who doesn't know better.

• sblakeley on 28th Aug 2004

  At the end of the day your conclusions are similar to mine and you admit that a Nokia would be better. You're right.
  
  As for the headset issue. According to Orange, it won't work with Plantronics, Sony Ericsson or Nokia headsets. I am not wasting money finding out.
  
  The OS on my phone could just be faulty but I am not imagining the problems I had. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was due to the phone being an Orange branded handset.
  
  Thanks for the comments, nice to see someone is reading what I wrote.

• Little Hunny on 25th Sep 2004

  Me and my brother both have this phone and we aint had any bother with it. The camera is only bad in the dark, and the bluetooth is fine. The phone allows you to store lots of numbers, pictures and tunes. I think it's quite an ok phone.
  
  Louise fro m Scotland (Glasgow)x