19 responses so far ↓

• 1 Lemieux

  I love this phone almost 2 years old now and no problems! Virgin is great too! I have several! Great for kids: just do text: $10 a month! no contracts no fees! it’s freedom!

• 2 Eriksson

  I bought the green version of this phone (was a Target Special, ~$18) about 2.5 years ago. This phone has been a gem. I’ve had no problems with battery life (lasts about a week on standby). However, I got the white version for both my parents and they did experience problems with battery life… I read somewhere that had to do with a specific version of the phone, unfortunately I don’t remember the details. I use cell phones mainly to make calls on the run… I don’t do text messaging, the web, emails, etc… That’s what computers are for in my world;) So the fact that this phone is really basic is a positive for me… I switched over to Virgin Mobile approximately 5 years ago, and I’ve been very pleased… I don’t do much wireless calling, so paying by the minute has saved me hundreds of dollars per year versus my earlier contract deal with Sprint. I even got my parents (they’re 70+) to switch over to Virgin… They also couldn’t be happier.. We must be some of their oldest customers;)… This phone is $9.99 at Virgin’s website, with free shipping… Don’t pay a dime more.

• 3 Hubert

  I finally gave in and joined the portable phone era when I bought my very first one in Fall of ‘06 (the Virgin Oyster). There were only a handful of requirements I had for this purchase: I wanted to stay to be able to contact and be contacted while away from my home; I wanted to be able to text message; and I wanted a service plan that didn’t require a long-term contract or the purchase of huge block of time.

  The Oyster fulfilled all these requirements and proved to a sturdy and reliable tool…that is, until one day recently (about 20 months after I first bought it) the display screen suddenly disappeared and never came back. The phone still turns on, and makes and receives calls, but needless to say, without access to the ability to read and navigate menus, I lost access to any texting capabilities and my contact list.

  Before i wrote this review, I read through some other user’s reviews about this phone and two mentioned having encountered the same problem of the disappearing display screen. It’s such a shame, too, that Virgin couldn’t manufacture a dependable and durable piece of technology because i would have remained a customer of theirs, but now I doubt I will when I replace this phone. Sure, the argument might be made that it was only a $20 purchase, but VM was getting about $100 dollars a year from me for their service, and because they couldn’t even make a product that lasted for at least two years, now they won’t.

  So if you are already own one of these phones, take this notice as a warning to be sure and copy your contact numbers, and either copy or forward any text messages you might want to save.

• 4 Eggers

  If I could give it 3.5, I would.

  I’ve had this phone since August 2006. It was my first cell phone at age 18. I can’t afford a plan, so the prepaid plan works for me.

  The phone works great for me. But I have 2 problems. First, the battery life is not that great. If I leave my phone on all night, when I wake up, I have low to no battery life left. My second problem with the phone is how the ringtones sound. I have bought so many ringtones of songs I like. They sound great online of course, but then I play them on my phone and they sound like crap. I do have some ringtones that sound great still, have static though it isn’t a big deal. However, for example, all my Evanescence ringtones don’t come out right.

  It is a good phone though. The graphics are great and it has really good features. I just wish it came in other colors or was slimmer. It is too lumpy in my pockets. (I will admit I want another phone, one that is purple and has a camera, but those all have plans attached. Bummer) Though the phone does the job.

• 5 Myklebust

  I’ve had this phone for three years. Unfortunately, I dropped the phone and it stopped workiing, so I ordered another one. I carry this phone with me all day, and it never shows low battery. Several years ago, I ordered another handset for my bedroom. When I ordered the original phone it was close to $300.00, so it made sense to order a new one that was one third the price.

• 6 Urbanek

  This flip phone has so many great features that are so easy to work.
  You would fall in love with this phone and never want another …IF…
  The hinge lasted more than 3 months and the phone would work more than 30 feet from it’s base. What a shame. The paging…private calling…2 way..great ringer selections are so easy to use and the nice blue light and flip features are great. Too bad they seemed to give up on it. I have owned 8 in the last 3 years all have the same short comings.

• 7 Sitther

  This may be a naive statement and or thought but: You’ve got your land line/Mobile line that can link with your cell phone. If Bluetooth and CellLink can access your cell account (keeping in mind that it’s bouncing around out there in the wild blue yonder and bouncing off cell towers and your cell phone) why can’t these phones (Uniden CellLink ELBT595) use the bluetooth/link-up technology and latch on to your cell account via the tower? When you link up to your cell phone with this ELBT595 it’s still has to bounce a tower for account info and so on, does it not?
  Maybe all info is in your cell phone but it does access a tower and transfers data.

  Can anyone say “Bluetooth in the sky/tower databases?”

  Why can’t we use this phone as a land line then grab one of the phones and walk out the door, switching to a mobile line…….. and presto chango.. You need only one phone for home and travel.
  I have this phone and an extra handset. So far, so good. I like it a lot. I did not need a camera, pda, music, etc., on this phone, so it’s great. But, I never seem to read anyone griping about having to use a land line and a cell.
  They’ve combined so much technology in these new cell phones, would it really be so hard to take an extra step with the ELBT595 and allow the phone (while in mobile mode) to access a cell phone account without owning a cell phone(with bluetooth)?
  Simplicity is such a wonder to me these days and often I feel technologically challenged.
  Of course, I’ll be a dork too, if someone replies to this, informing me that it is already being done. But… I shall save judgement on myself. I’m sure someone can and will fill in the blanks for me.

  Tell me that someone else has the same q’s….
  Dawn

• 8 Galati

  This system is one of the more stable phone systems I have owned. I am able to easily get a day’s worth of conference calls (5+ hours) with out recharging. Pairing to my blue tooth enabled phone is easy and works as advertised. Does not interfere with any of my electronics including WiFi.

  The handset seems solid to me however the buttons are a bit flimsy. The biggest test was when I ran the handset through the washing machine by accident. After pulling the battery and letting it dry throughly, I re-installed the battery and it continued to work.

  The biggest current issue is the cost for additional handsets seem high in this day and age.

• 9 Tarkanian

  I’ve had this phone for about a year now. While the CellLink sounds cool (and does work ok), the phone system itself is not up to par.

  The handsets feel cheaply made, and just done feel “right” in my hand. Battery life in standby and talk time is very short for my expectations - I always need to ensure the phones are in their cradles charging.

  Controls/UI are ok - but some options (speakerphone mute on the base station and speaker volume on base station for example) are UI menu items and not buttons. The full keypad for the base station is nice.

  Sound is awful on both ends of a conversation during landline operations. I find myself using my cell phone (without CellLink) more often than not. Range on the handsets isn’t on par with previous phones I’ve had.

  As soon as the new Panasonic DECT 6.0 line is out, I’ll be replacing this system.

• 10 Carleton

  Flip Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (White)

  This thing is a blast - easy to use, always handy - not for serious videos, but for something unexpected or anything you don’t want professionally done, it couldn’t be easier. Always have it with me.

• 11 Tharin

  My family loves this camcorder! It’s great to record the kids at their games, use for HW assignments, or just for fun! I highly recommend it! It’s so compact and so easy to use. The videos upload to your computer so easily. It’s dummy proof!

• 12 Verdi

  I’ve had my Flip Ultra since late 2007, and been quite happy with its performance since. Sure, it’s not HD, and maybe the optical lens isn’t the greatest, but for the price, ease of use, and portability, I’ve been quite satisfied with it … until now. Recently I was prompted to upgrade the internal Flip software with the new Flipshare software, enticed by the supposedly faster transfer rate and better management of files. Little did I know that it would totally mess up my entire video folder structure in Windows, and ruin my backup strategy. I actually have a pretty fast computer so the software installed properly (unlike many complaints of those who had software installation problems with less-than-modern hardware). However, all the originally saved videos had both their location (folders) and names changed, from the previously used Mmm-DD-YYYY - VIDnnnn.avi format, to the useless VIDnnnn.avi format, and from previously setup individual folders to a single FlipShare DataVideos folder; yes the date stamp is still there, but the file name no longer had the date information, which was important due to my backup strategy. I had been using Amazon S3 as an online backup of video files (a very cheap and reliable offsite backup method) and by renaming all the files, the new Flip software basically rendered it impossible to continue with my backup method, since there’s no way for my backup software to reconcile the old files which I’d already backed up (hundreds) with the exact same, but now renamed, files. I could delete all the backup files and start all over, but that’s 6 GB of videos I have to re-backup, and S3 charges by transfer amount and storage space. In truth, the transfer rate is pretty cheap but the hassle of handling the new file name format, and the prospect of having to re-upload many gigs of data, is extremely unpleasant.

  Several websites have addressed the software installation problem (http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r21983253-Help-Flip-problem-solved-Software-crash-on-install-why) and the backup problem (http://technologizer.com/2009/01/19/secrets-of-managing-your-flip-video-collection/) but of course I hadn’t seen these until after the fact. So for anyone who has the old Flip software and does any sort of file or backup management, I’d highly recommend you consider the impact. Also, Flip did not warn me that the file management system would be totally reorganized, which would certainly have kept me from upgrading; I’m so angry that I plan never to buy another Flip product, which is too bad since technically it’s pretty decent (the only reason I’m giving 3 instead of 1 stars). Given what’s happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if Flip leaves even new owners stranded when they decide to “upgrade” their software again — so buyer beware!

• 13 Lodge

  Worked as expected. Actually, it has more definition than expected. Definately worth the money spent.

• 14 Hubert

  What an intriguing concept.. a handheld digital video camera for under a hundred bucks. It’s implemented well in hardware, the device, the screen, everything works perfectly. And then it’s time to get the get the vidoes OFF of the device and onto your computer.

  Bad news. The software provided doesn’t work. Crashes within moments of starting. Two hours of Google searches and I manage to get it installed on another machine long enough to reformat the camcorder, and then install an older version of the device software that’s supposed to fix the problems with the latest release.

  Voila! The older version installs and runs… let’s try this out: Make a movie, select all, choose a theme, create mix. Adding videos: 5%, 10%, 20%… 20%… 20%… an hour later, 20%…. Oh. The program has caused a problem and needs to end. Isn’t that a surprise.

  It’s a shame really. The device meets all my modest video needs completely, but the software supporting it is junk. Completely useless. It’s going back.

• 15 Cramer

  I received one for Christmas as a gift and straight out of the box there were dead pixels on the CMOS sensor. After days of tedious email exchanges with Pure Digital they gave me an RMA number. They held onto the camera for weeks until I received a response to numerous emails regarding the status or my repair/replacement. They sent me a new factory-fresh camera that was more problematic than the first. Althought the image is clean, files do not encode properly (sections of green frames /stuttering) On my vacation to Utah 75 percent of my footage was encoded improperly, unplayable or were just suddenly erased and the file structure reset: i.e. Clip VID00021.MP4, VID00022.MP4 clips all dissapear then start recording at VID00001.MP4 again.

  I really wanted to love this camera and I don’t expect a whole lot of a two hundred dollar but this turd can’t even perfom it’s basic purpose of recording images and saving them until I can dump them to my computer.

  On top of that, Pure Digital’s customer support has the lazy reponse time you would expect from a government agency, not a supposedly hungry Bay-Area Tech company looking to take on established camera companies. Truly dissapointing.

• 16 Ossman

  Such a fun gadget! Nice packaging (like Ipod Touch), and easy to carry around.

  Unfortunately only has the capacity 1 h worth of recording, but it is a beginning… I ams ure they will come up with something greater soon.

  Love this gadget!

• 17 Iglesias

  Like you, I own many new technology devices. The compact portability of this device was appealing to me, however, this probably qualifies as the worst electronic investment I have made.

  I purchased a Flip Mino HD a few weeks ago and finally got to test it on a recent trip to New Orleans. The playback on my computer was jerky with freeze frames and the audio was not synced to the video. After a series of email to Flip customer service they tell me my computer is not “man enough” to play back their videos.

  My new laptop is a Toshiba Satellite U405D with an AMD dual core 2.10GHz processor. It has 4gb of memory, uses a 64 bit OS, 2.0 USB, and is running Windows Vista Ultimate SP1. Prospective buyers who are not running a super computer should be warned of the same likely disappointment that I now have. The only solution their customer service offered was: “It may be beneficial to look into getting a camcorder that is more compatible with your system.” So I am stuck with a worthless $200 paperweight.

  Don’t waste your money on this one. For only a $100 more, you can get a feature rich and useable real camera like I should have done.

• 18 Ingram

  This video camera is terrific. Needs a generous amount of light and close subjects, but it is tiny, extremely easy to set up and use and you can be taking videos in a matter of seconds from the time you remove it from the case.
  Bad news…I had just taken some priceless video - a baby colt running through a pasture - and the camera died. Stopped working for no reason. I’ve returned it for an exchange, and will try again, but it’s a bit unsettling. Hope it’s an isolated problem, and not something others will experience with this camera.

• 19 Derrick

  I picked up this sweet little camera and I love it. The controls are super simple. The quality is excellent and it is so great to be able to pull out the camera fire it up and bam you are recording.

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