Usha Lexus 771F

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Usha Lexus 771F

Aalaap Ghag, Jul 05, 2005 1010 hrs IST

Unfortunately, you can't call this the Lexus of mobile phones

Light and compact, all basic features in place, good display

Lots of quirks in the features, no GPRS, no WAP, no Java, no Bluetooth/Infrared, mediocre battery performance, price to performance ratio scores less

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Lexus always reminds you of luxury on the road. The GS300 to be precise. But this Lexus isn't luxury in your hand - its actually the exact opposite. Usha Sriram Electronics has introduced cellphones under the "Lexus" brand name that is also associated with electronics and home appliances. These Lexus mobile phones are not available in the main metros, but will be targetted at smaller cities like Pune, Nagpur, Hubli, Mysore etc. The phones are intented for mainstream and value conscious consumers.

Intro / Ergonomics

The Lexus 771F is an entry-level clamshell phone thats dual-band GSM (900/1800). The phone is 8.2cm tall (not counting the external antenna which itself is around 2.2cm tall), 4.2cm wide and 1.9cm thick. That makes the phone quite compact and not too thick to pocket. It's also very light at just 73gms. The outer shell is a combination of blue and silver, the blue part giving it a rather tacky look. The build quality is also not too promising with lots of creaking noises coming out if you push it closer against your ear.

It isn't too easy to flip open the phone with just one hand. You will need to use two or three fingers and force them into the fold to open it up.

The buttons are not too easy to press, but they offer good tactile feedback. The design of the digits from 1 through 0, including the * and # keys, is quite standard, but the 4-way navigational pad, the two soft keys and two shortcut keys are quite a disaster in terms of usability. The keys are small, curved, and placed in a somewhat awkward position. The big blue center of the navigational pad looks like a button, but its not. Below the navigational pad, there are two dedicated shortcut keys that start the phonebook and the messaging applets respectively. On the left side of the phone, there is a volume up/down button and another small button below it, which we will talk about later.

Feature Highlights

The phone features a pretty good quality 65k color TFT LCD display at 128x160 pixels, which is quite a standard size for most clamshells. The display measures 4.1cm diagonally - which is a pretty decent size as well. The display offers passable performance in bright sunlight. Wallpapers look quite crisp and vibrant on the screen. The phone has an option of having a static wallpaper as well as a wallpaper slideshow, that simply cycles through the pictures in the phone every 3 or 4 seconds. In what's probably the strangest function I've come across ever, the "Clear" button right below the navipad lets you switch to the next picture during stand-by mode. Of course, if you're still in slideshow mode, it'll change again anyway. The phone came with miscellaneous wallpapers of the regular fruits, flora and fauna, and also Mallika Sherawat which made things a bit more interesting. Well, for me at least.

The phone offers no wireless connectivity options - no Bluetooth, no Infrared or GPRS/WAP access either. The phone is ships with a data cable and a software CD, along with a wired handsfree set, the charger and a user's manual.