View Best Sellers   Release Date: Q4 2003 Released For: Sprint - Discontinued The Sanyo VM-4500 (SCP-5500) is the world's first PCS Ready Link exclusively from Sprint. Ready Link lets customers enjoy quick, two-way, 'walkie-talkie-style' communication across the network. Additionally, the VM-4500 (SCP-5500) comes with a built-in digital still camera with video clip capabilities, allowing the ability to capture 15-second video clips with sound, take VGA quality stills, and enjoy the convenience of nationwide press-to-talk operation and a high-quality, built-in speakerphone.

Technical Specifications
Network:	AMPS 800 / CDMA 800 / 1900
Form Factor:	Clamshell
Dimensions:	91 x 47 x 27 mm
Weight:	109 g
Antenna:	Stub / Extendable
Navigation:	4-Way Keypad
Battery Type:	1000 mAh Li-Ion
Talk Time:	3.25
Standby Time:	240
Memory:	1.4 MB
Expandable Memory:
Imaging
Main Screen:	65000 colors (TFT) 132 x 176 px
External Screen:	65000 colors (TFT) 64 x 64 px
Camera:	0.3 MP / 640 x 480 px / 16X Zoom / Flash / Video
Audio
MP3 Player:
FM Radio:
Speakerphone:
Push-To-Talk:
Multimedia
Wallpapers:	132 x 176 px
Screen Savers:	132 x 176 px
Ring Tones:	32 chord
Themes:
Games:	J2ME
Streaming Multimedia:
Messaging
SMS:
EMS:
MMS:
Email:
Chat:
Predictive Text:	T9
Applications
Phonebook Capacity:	300
Calendar:	100 entries
To-Do List:	20 entries
WAP:	2.0
Voice Commands:	30 names
Calculator:
Connectivity
Bluetooth:
Infrared Port:
High-Speed Data:	cdma2000 1xRTT
Wi-Fi:
GPS:
PC Sync:	SnapMedia
More Information
Website:	Sanyo VM-4500 (SCP-5500) Website
Discussion:	Manufacturers Forum

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Sanyo 5500 has been good to me

To make it short and simple the Sanyo 5500 has been a great phone. I've had the phone since it came out and it hasn't given me any problems. The features are outdated but since I've had it I've always enjoyed using them. The bettery life has been just as good as any phone I've had and the reseption has been the best out of any phone I've had. I've owned three sanyo phones and one Samsung and this one has been the best. I wouldn't pay full price for it now but I'm sure there are plans that cut the price to a very reasonable level.

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8 out of 9 people found this review helpful

Sanyo VM4500 (SCP5500)... THE worst phone I've ever had.

I signed up with Sprint on a 2 year, 2 phone contract and wanted a top of the line phone for myself. I've had mobil phones since they were called car phones and had a box the size of a suitcase in the trunk of your car... the first one I could take with me was the kind where the handset had to be removed from the car and plugged into a 20 lb briefcase sized base with a 6' antenna. So I've gone through the evolution from that to what was state of the art equipment when I'd last purchased my last cell phone from Cingular in the late 1990's.

So when my contract with Cingular was up, I looked for the best deal and went with Sprint. I liked the features of of the Sanyo 5500 and got a great deal on it with a 2 year commitment.

It was a problem from the start. Everything worked great and I loved the features, but the reception was terrible. I called Sprint and they said reception should be perfect in my area (I live within a quarter mile of a Sprint Store). Some days it worked fine, and other days every conversation seemed to end with "let me get to my house (or work or friend's house or payphone) and I'll call you back." But I could be in the same room with the second phone on the plan (which was free and had no features) and it worked fine. Bad phone, right? I took it in for service 4 or 5 times in the first month and they said it was fine, or needed "new software" or "try it now". I had purchased it off the webb directly from Sprint, so I had already called customer service there numerous times. They eventually sent me a new phone. Same problems. I live in Houston, so it's not like I was out in the hinderland somewhere. Sometimes I would have perfect reception on a call, then 10 minutes later sitting in the same place, I'd hear maybe 2 words out of 3. And they would have the same problem hearing me. I'd get disconnected half the time, especially in my car.

Over the 16 months I had the phone, I must have called customer service and visited The Sprint Store dozens of times, and had the phone replaced by them 3 times and once by my insurance when I got frustrated and threw the phone (and my $20 leather case) into 50' of water while in my boat in Galveston Bay. (We were anchored 10' from an oil rig with a cell tower and my friend's Sprint phone worked fine.) I thought about paying off my contract but they wanted something like $100 for each phone, and I just couldn't see giving in to what I considered extortion.
So over 6 or 8 months, I just got used to talking fast and guessing at garbled words and calling back when I'd get cut off or waiting until I got to another phone. Some months I'd use less than 100 minutes of my 1000 minute limit. I'd given up on using my phone normally and all my friends were used to repeating themselves and calling back when we got disconnected. I hated Sprint and couldn't wait for my contract to end. I badmouthed Spring to everyone I knew. I just learned to make the best of it.

After 16 months of this, after an especially important call kept cutting out, I'd had enough. I talked to a supervisor at customer service and they promised to replace my phone with a cheaper, different model phone for free. After a week and it hadn't come, I called back and they said it showed where I'd called but they didn't know anything about sending a different phone. So I started writing letters. I addressed 10 letters to 10 different executives at Sprint along with filing a complaint with the FCC. Within a few days, I received a call from someone at Sprint who agreed to give me $100 off any phone I wanted. Well, I'd had it with cameras, voice dial, internet, and all the other features that worked fine on a phone that I couldn't talk on, and I bought the cheapest phone they had at the Sprint store, no camera, no internet, no voice dial. And it has worked perfectly for the past six months. Perfect reception, never a disconnect, no more repeating myself or garbled words. I still hate Sprint. I can't understand why they would offer a phone that does not work. I had at least 3 different people at Sprint stores tell me that they have more problems with that phone than any other.

So in December when my two year contract is up, I'll go with T-Mobil or Cingular or AT&T, even though my Sprint phone works perfectly... Just on general principles.

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17 out of 20 people found this review helpful

Sanyo 5500 (VM4500) - The phone with everything

You know the specs. You know that it has a camera that takes pictures and 15min movie clips, so I won't go into to detail about that.

What I will tell you is that the picture quality is pretty good not great. But its a cell phone camera, not your 5mp digital camera. To me it gets the job done. I use most of my pictures that for pesonal use like caller picture IDs and for a quick shot when I don't happen to have my digicam with me.

The speakerphone is one of the best I've heard. No one ever knows that i am even on the speaker or even on my cellphone.

I did purchase and antenna booster though, so I am not sure if it's just the phone or if it's the antenna booster at work but it doesn't cut out or anything. I will tell you that when i originally purchased the phone i got an old version of it... and it has this redialing issue.

Sprint replaced it with the new version which is version 201. Basically what happened was the phone just kept redialing i couldn't get any calls or call out and it just suddenly happened like last week and they where happy to replace it for me. I can't really comment on the walkie talkie feature because i am not a memeber of that service but I think it would be really cool for someone the could make use of it.

The phone does it all as you could probably tell from the specs. Its basically one of the top Sanyo phones they have. The camcorder is fun you can change borders for the movie... turn the movie black and white you can even cut the sound and have a silent black and white movie. It's definitly a fun feature for the phone.

The phone is fast. it takes the picture with no major delay. At last I don't even notice a delay. It also comes with demos of Tetris which is really fun. Fox Football 2004 and Bejeweled. There all pretty fun games.

The rings I downloaded where free and only took about 1 second to download, real quick. I like the animated menus which is new and i also like the buddy they added for you. It's a little dog that dances and runs around and does funny little things everytime you open and close your phone. And if you get tired of your little buddy you can turn him off.

The phone comes in blue and silver. I happen to get the blue one which the backlight lights up blue which is really cool. You also have the area on top of the phone where the flash is. Everytime you talk to someone, the light on top flashes. You can change the color of the light on top from a range or you can just have it change through a rainbow of colors.

Overall after I got the new version of the phone I rate it 10. It's a cool phone with lots of feature for the electronic junky like myself.

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75 out of 95 people found this review helpful

Great Phone

This is one of the best phones available in the united states right now. I had it for about two months before I returned it (see cons), and it really was amazing.

Pros: Video and Picture phone, high res screen, LOUD speakerphone and ringer, picture caller ID, stylish, great reception.

Cons: No bluetooth, can't transfer pictures without $15 dollar a month vision service.

The only reason I returned this phone is because I wanted to transfer the pictures and videos to my computer, but i couldnt without the exoensive vision service. If thats not a problem for you, then I would definitely recomend it.

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112 out of 144 people found this review helpful

scp-5500 not worth the money or time

ok i went bought this phone because it was one of the hottest models that sprint had....but $300 for a phone that falls apart????....
the area which u charge it gets loose and you have to run from store to store trying to find a tech who can fix it and of course u get the run around each and every time. this is a samsung warranty issue so be sure if you have this problem to let them know or they will try to charge you $100 to fix it...if u dont want to leave your phone with them then u can take the original charger back to sprint and they will give you a new one that is flat that works fine for a while....the part that flips on this phone is very weak and within 6 mths time it is falling apart...but of course this is ur problem and it is not covered under warranty...
as far as the features go they are great...speaker phone is clear, screen and images clear, and so are the ring tones...which you can find on many sites for free and you dont have to pay for them.... very unhappy with this phone and the phones service areas...most calls are dropped in the city and where u would think they would drop they do not...odd...maybe the merge with nextel is a good idea but if it takes much longer i feel that someone else maybe a better provider

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10 out of 13 people found this review helpful

My Gripes: Bad Interface :(

It does the job... but the usability of the interface could be a lot better and more functional. Here are some of my Gripes

1) Call History: It does not record all the consecutive outgoing calls you make to the same person. IE: if you call XYZ 10 times in one hour, the phone will only contain one entry for XYZ.

2) Call History: Only 20 entries per log type (incoming,outgoing,etc). But there's so much free unused space on the phone. Would be nice if the space usage was on a sliding scale.

3) Alarms: cumbersome to create. To create an alarm/schedule, the default setting is that the alarm will go off 10 minutes before the time specified. This is simply stupid. Each time you have to manually decrement that 10 minute setting to 0. Thats an extra 15 or so key-presses.

4) Alarms: features. You can specify that the alarm run daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. But what about a "weekdays" setting? That would be nice. The typing "input modes" are also not very helpful (ie: t9, symbol, alphabet, etc).

5) Speaker Phone. Sometimes it works other times no. Mostly the other party can't hear me. So it's good if you're on hold, otherwise, maybe not.

6) Pictures/Web: I couldnt even add a jpg/gif/etc from the web into the camera as a background,etc. Even by mailing the pic to my phone. It never worked. I had no problem loading MIDI files though

7) Camera: Settings. There's no feature to tell the d$mn camera to remember your settings. So if you have a favorite setting you have to set it manually each time (an extra 8-12 keypresses for each photo set)

8.) Games. There are only 1 or 2 games pre-loaded. And you win or the time is up within a few minutes - otherwise you have the PURCHASE the pre-loaded game to continue. simply stupid. Can't they at least put tic-tac-toe on there for free?

9) Alarms: Bug. The alarms go off. And you click View, then Clear to dismiss the alarms you "missed". And they supposedly clear the log. Now the next time you power off/on or battery pops out, you get all those logs back again saying that you missed nnn Alarms. And you have to clear them again.

10) Display. UGLY. Time/date bug. By default, the TIME-Date is not displayed when you're talking on the phone. You have to click the Back key to get it to show up on the Large display. When the phone is open, there is NO external display at all

11) Custom Display. If you add your own image as a background, the usual Date/Time is not displayed at all on the screen

12) Display. Not many default options for the background. no biggie.

13) Internet. The browser is a pain to use.

14) Power Input. Not a problem. But be careful about the power input jack. After about 6 months i had to get a replacement cuz the jack was shorting out. Probably my fault though, now i no not to let the phone dangle from it's power cord.

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45 out of 72 people found this review helpful