Snapfon ez ONE Cell Phone Review

Additional Hardware and Features

The Snapfon has an easy-to-use slider on the right side of the phone to lock and unlock it. Next to that slider is another slider switch that turns the flashlight on and off. The flashlight is located at the top of the phone, which is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 6: The right side.

Figure 7: The top of the Snapfon with flashlight on.

The flashlight has a high intensity LED light that is strong enough to help you find you keys or to light the walkway in front of you. The flash light works even when the phone is in the locked position. Next to the flashlight on the top of the phone is the place where you can attach the included neck lanyard or a simple wrist strap.

The left side of the Snapfon is shown in Figure 8. This side has two sliders just like the other side of the phone. The slider on the left controls the volume. The slider on the right turns the FM radio on and off.

Figure 8: The Left side of the Snapfon.

The FM radio will start at the last station that you listened to. There are no presets, so if you want to change the station, you use the up and down navigation arrow keys. The bottom of the Snapfon has a standard head phone port and you can use the included ear buds to listen to the radio. Even though the head phone port is a standard size, be aware that it is proprietary. You cannot use other headphones with the Snapfon. Only the included set will work. Unfortunately that means that you will be stuck with the hard ear buds, unless you can find some soft tips for them.

Having an FM radio without an Mp3 player is unique. It will appeal to those who like ease-of-use, those who don’t own a computer but would still like to listen to some music, as well as those who like talk radio.

One minor thing that we didn’t like about the Snapfon was that three of the sliders had a little too much play in them. Although they worked fine, they seemed to be slightly loose and they made a slight noise when the phone was moved around.

The only problem that we had with our Snapfon happened when we tried
to use the ear buds. When we plugged our ear buds into the Snapfon, they didn’t work. Instead, the sound kept coming out of the phone itself. After a quick call to people at Snapfon, they sent me a new headset. Unfortunately, that did not work either. They quickly sent me a new phone with no questions asked and the new phone works like a charm. Customer service was very responsive.

Another unique feature of the Snapfon is the orange S.O.S. button that can be seen in Figure 9, on the back of the phone. This button is recessed, so it won’t be accidently activated, but it can be easily pressed in an emergency. After you activate and program in the numbers that you want the S.O.S. button to call, in an emergency you simply hold the S.O.S. button for 5 seconds. This will sound an alert and will activate the automatic emergency calling. The phone will consecutively call the 4 numbers until it received a response. If you don’t enter any numbers, the phone will call your local emergency response center.

Figure 9: The S.O.S. button.