Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Roomy keypad, attractive design, VGA camera, good call quality.

Thumbs Down:

None

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: CDMA2000 1X

Band: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 / AWS 1700/2100

Phone design: Slider

Caller ID: Yes

Other features: Camera, GPS

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

2.2 inch display of the Kyocera Laylo M1400 has a resolution of 320×240 pixels and supports 262k colors. Options for display languages are Spanish and English. Included accessories are lithium ion battery, vehicle power charger, Bluetooth headset and AC travel charger. The 700 mAh lithium ion battery has rated battery life of 200 minutes for talk time and stand time is 200 hours.

The phone has 1.3 megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom and self portrait mirror. Downloadable content includes wallpapers, ringtones and screen savers. IMPA4 and POP3 email protocols are supported. Messaging services include MSN, AIM and Yahoo

Razzle Dazzle:

Low end phones often come with boring designs but this handset is an exception. This handset is attractive and stylish. It is characterized by rounded corners with smooth curves. The phone is clad in soft matte plastic which makes it feel comfortable in the hand. The handset is 3.73 inches long, 1.84 inches wide, and 0.67 inches thick. This handset will easily fit in your pocket due to the compact design and with the 3.17 ounce weight; it won’t be too hard to carry around either.

Inside Dope:

There are tons of smartphone available in the market today but it doesn’t make sense to buy one if you are not going to use all the features in it. Some people don’t even know about the high end features that exist in the phone. They purchase a smartphone just for making calls and sending text messages and thus waste a lot of money. Why not buy a simple low key handset instead? Kyocera Laylo M1400 is made for such people. Though an entry level phone, it comes with a few features like VGA camera and GPS. We also liked that the phone had good call quality and had an attractive design. This phone is available in the market right now for $59 and you don’t have to sign any contract for it.

The display of the Kyocera Laylo M1400 is 2.2 inches big and has a resolution of 320×240 pixels with support for 262k colors. By default, the menu interface used is that of MetroPCS which doesn’t seem to take full advantage of the big screen. Menu is not as vibrant or colorful as we expected. You can adjust the display’s brightness, backlight time, menu format, banner text, and pattern of time and date. There is a shortbar on the home screen which gives you link to eight applications – mail@metro, MetroNavigator, Mobile IM, MetroBACKUP, Pocket Express, Metro411, MetroWEB, and MyMetro.

Kyocera Laylo M1400’s navigation array is located underneath the display; it has 2 soft keys, square toggle along with OK button in the middle, back key, speakerphone key, and Talk/End buttons. The buttons are OK but the four keys in the corner feel a bit flimsy. Numeric keypad is located beneath the upper half of the phone and we were glad to find that it was roomy and spacious. Typing on it is easy and buttons feel good to press. Our only complaint was that the topmost row of buttons is too close to the slider.

On the left of Kyocera Laylo M1400, you have the 2.5 mm headphone jack along with the camera button and the volume rocker. On the right there is the charger jack. The camera lens is located on the back and it comes with a self portrait mirror too.

Kyocera Laylo M1400 has a 500 entry limit phone book which should be sufficient for most users considering this is an entry level phone. A single entry can take a note, 2 Website URLs, 2 postal addresses, 2 e-mail addresses, an IM handle and six phone numbers. You can make group of callers and assign a separate ring tone to them. Photo caller ID is also supported. There are nine ringtones to choose from.

Basic features on the Kyocera Laylo M1400 include a speakerphone, vibrate mode, multimedia and text messaging, world clock, alarm clock, scheduler, tip calculator, stop watch, timer, calculator, and memo pad. Some advanced features include instant messenger, online backup service, GPS, Web-based e-mail, wireless web browser, voice command support, and voice memo recorder.

Kyocera Laylo M1400 has a VGA camera but we won’t complain about it since this is a low end phone. There are three options for photo resolutions which include 320×240, 640×480, and 1,280×1,024 pixels. Other settings for camera includes white balance, self timer, multishot mode, brightness, color tone, fun frames and eight shutter sounds along with a silent mode. Picture quality is not that bad considering this is a VGA camera. Photos are bright enough and look decent. The camera doesn’t have a camcorder mode.

Rated battery life of the Kyocera Laylo M1400 is 3.3 hours for talk time and standby time is 8.3 days. We tested this handset for call quality and it was pretty good. Voices on the other side were natural and our friends couldn’t tell that we were using a cell phone.

Nitty Gritty:

This device is targeted at people who use a cell phone just to make calls and send text messages. Buy it if you belong to this category.

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