Sanyo Katana DLX 8500 Champagne Phone (Sprint)

Retaining the original Katana's thin profile, the DLX adds a fashionable radial finish in champagne.

Sprint's music service is another EV-DO-powered service that makes the Katana DLX all the more desirable. With the Sprint Music Store, your phone is a music player, letting you buy, download, and then jam out wherever you are with new songs or old favorites. Offering a growing selection of more than 1.6 million songs, the store provides you two copies of each song--one for the phone and another for the PC, as well as the ability to burn songs to a CD using Windows Media Player. Save your songs to a memory card with a capacity that's right for you. You can even pause to take a call without missing a beat.

Measuring just 0.6 inches thin, the Katana DLX features a stunning radial finish in champagne and a unique reverse hinge that opens to an ideal ergonomic talking position. It sports a bright 2-inch internal LCD that offers a 240 x 320-pixel resolution and 262K colors, which also features IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology for wide-angle viewing with superior brightness and contrast. It's supplemented by an exterior TFT LCD (80 x 80 pixels, 65K colors), which enables quick viewing of the time, caller ID, and more.

More than a pretty face, the Katana DLX is ready for downloads from the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV over the EV-DO Mobile Broadband Network.

You can listen to your favorite tunes saved to MicroSD memory card with the integrated digital audio player (support for MP3, AAC, AAC+ formats). Snap photos on the go with the 1.3-megapixel camera, which also includes a self-timer, multi-shot capability and controls for white balance, brightness, contrast, and sharpness. It also provides support for PictBridge technology so you can print your photos without the need of a PC (either using USB or Bluetooth). Shoot and share your digital photos instantly with Sprint PCS Picture Mail. You can also shoot video clips up to 2 hours in length (for saving to memory card), or a short 20-second clip for sending via video mail.

This phone provides Bluetooth version 2.0 wireless connectivity, and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, audio/video remote control, and printing. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones. You can connect your laptop (either via Bluetooth or wired USB) and enjoy dial-up networking (DUN)--surf the Internet, send email, and access files from a server--using Sprint's Mobile Broadband Network.

Instantly send and receive SMS text messages across the room or across the country, anywhere in the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network. The T9 predictive text entry technology is built into the unit, which makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets--a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

Sprint Navigation, powered by TeleNav, provides full-featured GPS navigation including voice and on-screen turn-by-turn driving directions and more than 10 million business listings (TeleNav unlimited requires data plan plus monthly subscription). Other features include:

• Voice Activated Dialing: Say the name of the person you want to call, and the phone dials the number automatically.
• Easy, one-touch access to all your personal email including AOL/AIM, Yahoo!, Windows Live (Hotmail and MSN) and more.
• Express your style and interests by customizing the appearance and features of your phone's standby screen, main menu, and My Favorites screens with your choice of downloadable themes.
• Personalize your phone based on the applications most frequently used; assign favorite device activities to the corresponding menu numbers for quick access.
• Record and store as many as 300 different voice memos, each up to 3 minutes in length, for playback anytime.
• Connects to a TTY device, allowing anyone who is hearing impaired the ability to communicate
• Wireless Backup: If your phone is ever lost, stolen, damaged or replaced, you can use Wireless Backup to restore your contact information quickly and easily. Additional charges apply.

Vital Statistics
The Katana 8500 DLX weighs 3.5 ounces and measures 3.7 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches. Its 1000 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4 hours of talk time. It runs on the CDMA 850/CDMA 1900 frequencies for voice and CDMA2000 EV-DO for data. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.