Sagem My411c Review

Good Points
Feature-packed for the money
Small, light, sleek
A good buy if you can live with the short battery life

Bad Points
Poor battery performance - a car charger is a must!
Naff camera
Speaker could be louder

General Comments
I really shouldn't grumble because this little Sagem My411c phone (on Virgin Mobile) was an utter steal from Phones 4U. I paid £25 including a £10 qualifying top-up and then got a £10 bonus top-up for free because I was upgrading. So out I walked with a dinky little thing for a fiver!

This is a lovely sleek little thing with triband, bluetooth, a camera, an SD slot for your piccies/music/custom ringtones and a nice blue external display for time/date/signal/battery status.

The camera's a bit iffy quality-wise. It'll snap you your evidence when someone prangs your car. Otherwise, just regard it as a toy and it won't bother you. I'd like more volume on the speaker; the kids say it's loud enough, so I guess the MY411c just isn't aimed at forty-somethings who've been to too many rock concerts over the years. I'd better get used to texting more, eh?

There's just one major fault with this phone and that's the battery life. "Up to 3 h 00/200 h" says the manual. Even given that these figures are what the writer terms "theoretical", Sagem have got to be having a laugh. Calling and texting drains the power alarmingly fast. Sitting there in my handbag with the phone doing nothing, the battery gives about 50 hours standby with the bluetooth disabled. That amounts to an inconvenience that can't really be made up for by the whistles and bells on this otherwise pleasing little budget phone.