Sagem MYC3-2 Review

Overall Rating

Sagem MyC3-2

Good points: Small and cute, good choice of ringtones, fast texting, SMS delivery notification, cheap to buy second hand.

Bad points: Poor speed dial options, no caller groups, weedy graphics, inaccurate signal indicator.

I picked up this secondhand flip phone via eBay last week, for just over a fiver including delivery. I wanted a spare handset for my daughter to keep in her bag (so she has access to two networks in patchy reception areas) and at 73 x 42 x 21 mm and weighing 75g, the MyC3-2 does the job with minimum handbag clutter.

Beyond being handy, though, the MyC3-2 is a rather annoying phone to use, not least because just a little more thought into how people actually use basic-spec phones could have made it an excellent piece of kit.

The navigation lettering on the home screen is small and hard to read. You can only set up speed dial by using the short cut keys and as you only have two of those, you can only have two numbers on speed dial. You have a decent choice of ringtones, yet you can't assign different ringtones to different numbers or indeed to groups of numbers as number grouping isn't available. All small faults, but which conspire to make me think I wouldn't want the MyC3-2 as my everyday phone.

On the good side, I let my mother (a texting enthusiast in her mid seventies) have a play with the MyC2-3 and she reckons the text imput speed is better than any handset she's used before. No frustrating waits between typing in more than one letter from the same key and the keys themselves are user-friendly. Mum also liked that the MyC2-3 also has the delivery notification feature as an option. One major niggle with the text system is that if a text can't be sent (a common problem in low signal areas like mine) you're not given the option of saving it. You can save it before attempting to send, then retrieve it as a draft, but why the unnecessary complication, eh, Sagem?

Speaking of signal, the signal strength indicator on the MyC3-2 is wildly optimistic. Take any other handset in the house (and we have half a dozen that will take a Virgin SIM) and you won't get a single bar of signal without walking down to the end of the lane. The MyC-2, however, shows 2 to 3 bars inside the house; of course, when you actually try to use the phone, the call fails because the signal isn't actually there. I don't think it's a Sagem problem as such, as I have a My411c (see my other reviews) and this problem doesn't occur.

I notice that if the handset is left inactive for more than a few minutes, the screen blanks and the phone has to be turned off and on again to restore the display. I don't know whether this is a common problem with this model or whether it's just a wear-and-tear fault on a phone that's seen a bit of life.

In summary, the Sagem Myc2-3's not a bad little phone for the basics, but there are too many frustrations to make it a happy choice for everyday usage. I prefer my Samsung SGH S300 (£4 at a car boot sale!) but that's another review altogether....