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Panasonic X400

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By Yu Hanwen
Sep 06, 2004

Japanese handset makers are well-known for their miniaturist and minimalist designs. Panasonic is no exception and its X60 series was one of the tinier handsets to grace the market. Just as we thought clamshells couldn’t get any thinner, the company surprised the media at CommunicAsia 2004 when it announced the X400, which is much slimmer than the X66. Unfortunately, its slender design sacrifices several common features.

Design
Chunky clamshells like the Sony Ericsson Z600 are passé. The Panasonic X400 is truly wafer thin, measuring a mere 84.3 x 47.4 x 17.5mm. When closed, it’s as slim as your average candy-bar phone.

The sleek façade is attractively decked out in a glossy black veneer, but users should note that it smudges easily. While a camera lens sits at the top of the phone, the lack of an external display caused us much inconvenience. We had to constantly flip open the phone to ascertain the time or to check if we had any new messages.

Doing so is a cinch, however, with the inbuilt auto-flip mechanism. Depressing a button located on the left hinge barrel springs the mobile into position and reveals the TFT. Despite the screen's sharpness and vivid colors, we found the display too small for comfortable viewing.

The buttons on the phone are well-spaced but flushed with the surface of the handset. While this could have been done to maintain the overall slender frame, it would have been ergonomically preferable if the buttons were raised slightly for easier texting.

Features
The X400 offers basic features but does a decent job with what little it has. Its responsive menu system utilizes a nine icon grid view, while the directional pad and softkeys provide quick access to common applications. Sending out SMS is a snap thanks to the handset’s excellent predictive text implementation and the ease with which users can switch between different languages and messaging modes.

Perhaps the biggest tradeoff for the X400’s nifty size lies in the audio and camera departments. The X400 offers 16-chord polyphony which, while pleasant, pales in comparison with the 32-chord polyphony found increasingly on most handsets today. Camera functions are also scanty and users can fiddle with only twilight mode, image size and anti-flicker settings.

The X400 offers GPRS Class 8, Java support and is WAP 1.2.1-enabled. Users can choose to exchange media content via MMS or an infrared connection.

Reception, Battery Life And SAR
We had no issues with both reception and voice quality. The battery lasted an acceptable three days on moderate phone usage.

The highest Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) value recorded for this model was 0.555W/kg, which meets international requirements concerning exposure to radio waves.

Conclusion
This Panasonic's slender form is a major draw but the tradeoffs are the lack of an external screen and the small display inside. If the X400's basic feature set doesn't suffice, users on the prowl for similar slim offerings should consider the upcoming Motorola V3 which should be more of an all-rounder.

The X400 is expected in late September.

 
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