When I first heard about the Pantech C150 via a press release I knew the phone was small, but you don’t grasp how small it is until you actually hold one in your hand. It looks almost fragile in pictures but it isn’t I’ve already dropped it by accident and not a scratch on her.

I am pretty impressed with the Pantech C150, it’s super small, 4.1 inches tall and 1.7 inches wide and less than a third of an inch thick, it literally fits in the palm of my hand, it’s loaded with features such as a camera that does both stills and video and bluetooth. It also has a full color 1.8 inch LCD screen.

Aside from the small form factor and great looks of the phone, the first thing you notice is the user interface. It has to be one of the easiest and most straight forward UI I have ever seen. This is the first phone I can honestly say that I did not need the user manual to figure things out. Pantech did a great job developing the software for the phone.

The first thing I did with the phone was make a few calls, and purposely wasted the battery which took longer than I expected. I then charged the battery up which took less than an hour and I called my self and just let the phone sit to test battery life. I expected 4 hours 5 hours max before the battery was fully dead. Can anyone say 8 hours? It took a little over 8 hours of talk time to fully drain the battery. It took 2 hours to lower the battery power by 1 bar. I was stunned I thought maybe I did something wrong when testing, I looked at the call time for the last call when I plugged the phone in and it said the call lasted 8 hours 13 minutes.  I was really surprised by this because Pantech advertises the battery life at 3 hours of straight talk time. I then tested battery life with using data occasionally and that dropped down to 3 and a half hours, which is still pretty good better then my 400 dollar phone. (I ran the battery life a 2nd time and got just over 7 hours of straight talk time with the phones default settings)

Another thing I noticed right away when talking on the phone is the sound quality, I have the T-Mobile dash, and a Moto Razr and the sound quality on the Pantech C150 put both of those phones to shame, the speaker on the C150 is also much clearer than on my Dash and Razr.

I also did some web browsing on the phone and I am not sure if it’s the phone or not but the data transfer rate seemed faster on the C150 than it did on my Moto Razr on the same network.

The phone has a large screen for a phone of its size, and the screen is crystal clear and the number you dial appears large on the screen.  Texting is also easier for me because of how big everything appears on screen.

My mom who came over for dinner saw the phone and fell in love with it right away, the first words out of her mouth were and I quote “I love phones that are small like this one, but I can never read what’s on the screen” She has bad vision so she likes phones which display big numbers. I told her to dial a number and try it out just to get her reaction when she saw the numbers on the screen, she loved it even more. I think I will be getting her one for Christmas.

The C150 has a camera and while I was testing it out, I was a bit disappointed in the quality, but then I realized the lens was covered with a piece of protective plastic and when I removed it the pictures were a lot clearer, definitely not the best picture quality but it is good for a camera phone. To see a picture taken with the phone click here. The video quality is just as good.

Overall the Pantech C150 is a great phone, offers a lot features for a low price, and even though it doesn’t look like it can withstand a lot of wear and tear it can. So we here at CellRants.com award the C150 our 5 Start Must Have award. We don’t have any awards made out yet so we are using our sister site HardwareGeeks.com award in the mean time.

The C150 retails for $199, free with 2 year contract with wireless from at&t.

Full Phone Specs:
Weight: 2.57 ounces
Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.7 x .5 inches
Talk Time: Up to 3 hours according to Pantech (but I went 8 hours without the battery dyeing)
Standby Time: Up to 10 days
Tri-band world phone - 850/1800/1900 MHz
Address book stores up to 800 entries
260K TFT color screen with 128 x 160 pixels
Universal headset capable for hands free use
Warranty: One year on the phone and accessories
All talk, data, and standby times depend on network configuration

Two questions:

- Can you change the shortcuts assigned to the joystick?

- Can you transfer files to and from the phone via Bluetooth?

Yes you can change the shortcuts for the joystick.

As for file transfer via Bluetooth, I no longer have the phone as it was a review sample and I did not test that.

I did get one for my mom though, so I will see if I can next week when i see her.

thanks for the review.  one question: that joystick looks like it sticks out a little higher than the rest of the phone.  did it get caught going in and out of your pocket?

The joystick is actually level with the surrounding circle of buttons, but it appears that way because the inner part of the joystick is deeper. I hope that makes sense, not sure if it did but I hope you get what I meant.

gotcha.  sounds like it won’t be a problem, then.  thanks!

I just got this phone and I don’t see any way to change the joystick settings.  Are you sure you can do that, and if so, how?  I am technically adept and have been through every option multiple times.  It is a big hassle the way it is configured by default, because pressing the joystick when the phone is off will bring up the browser ... using up airtime ... and it is easy to press by accident.

Also, in response to a previous question, the joystick actually is a little exposed.  I don’t think it is a big deal, but if it got caught on some thread or something in your pocket, it would be possible to damage it.  Just be careful.

Overall, this is a great little phone.  I just wish I could configure the joystick!

I don’t have the phone in front of me anymore, but the way I did it was in the home screen settings I think thats what it was called.

I have had mine for a few days now… here are my thoughts:

- I can’t find a way to change the joystick shortcuts.

- You can transfer files to and from the phone via Bluetooth.

- The joystick does stick up a little bit.  I worry a little about the durability of the joystick.

- Sound quality is not as good as I read in all the reviews.

Some quirks:

- When you edit a contact and then save, it returns you to the top of the contact list, not where you left off.  Very frustrating.

- When you switch to silent mode via the hotkey (*), and then switch back, it does not go back to the mode you were in.

Overall, I am happy with the phone.  I hope it holds up for a while.

From Pantech’s tech support:

“Unfortunately you cannot assign a different function to any of the buttons on the phone.  This is strictly a software programming issue and it’s something the service provider will unlikely change.  AT&T;are the ones that write the software for the phone.”

I did find a solution to the issue of accidentally bringing up the browser:  Go into the Media Net | Profiles setting and create a dummy profile that doesn’t do anything and select it.  That way, if you accidentally press the joystick and bring up the browser, it won’t connect to anything.  If you want to use the browser, just switch the profile back to the Media Net one.

Hmm, I remembered wrong sorry everyone :(

The joystick is super fragile, mine broke from apparently normal use. It did break from catching on something...it actually cracked in several pieces. Hopefully AT&T;will cover me on this since its not even three months old.

Also, I’ve never gotten more than about 3 hours of talk time. This is without Bluetooth and with 4 bars. So I’d like to know the secret of getting 8 hours!

Decent phone otherwise...thanks for the tip for turning off the MediaNet

I’ve figured out an additional trick to disable the browser. Hopefully that will save you some frustration.

This is good mobile phone!

Thank you for adding this review, it really helped in my decision.. I think I’m going to get this phone now. (: