Review: Kyocera DuraMax for Sprint
If you want to send messages from the DuraMax, you're going to have to work for it. The text messaging app is basic and straight forward. There are 20 pre-loaded messages, as well as an easy way to insert "web shortcuts", which are standard Internet phrases such as "http://", "www", or ".com". You can also control the behavior of the predictive text software and add custom words to the phone's dictionary. What I don't like is that you can't insert media into a text message. If you want to compose a "picture mail", as Sprint (still!) calls it, you have to choose that option first. At least messages are threaded.
Want more than SMS? Lots of luck.
There are no email nor IM clients pre-loaded on the DuraMax. Instead, you have to download them from Sprint's content store. The apps themselves are (thankfully) free, and if you have a data plan, it doesn't cost anything additional each month to use them.
Once you download the email app, you see that it is pre-loaded with a number of webmail clients: AOL Mail, AIM Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Work, PCS Mail, and the ability to configure your own IMAP or POP3 accounts. Setup is a snap. Once you're signed in, you have access to a mobile version of your email.
On the IM side of the table, you have AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo clients bundled into the one app that's available in the Sprint content store. The IM client is identical to that of other Sprint feature phones. Seeing your online buddies and sending them messages is no more difficult than on any other feature phone, but the experience is far from rewarding.
Where's the social networking integration? Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are conspicuously absent, as is any sort of catch-all social networking app. The best you can do is visit the mobile web sites of these services and hope that you have a good connection.
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