Sagem my401C
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The cheapest and quite possibly the most cheerful of Sagem's clamshells, the my401C won't break any records for functionality. But it is cute, stylish and comes at a very attractive price.

Its diminutive size and curved lines make for a very pleasing pocketful, too. Yet while the my401C has got a nice sense of minimal style, it's the minimal accessories and functions that sadly define it.

The my401C comes in several colour combinations, with a pleasantly tactile, rubberised back, and an outer screen with a basic but unfussy white-on-black display. Inside there's a less than stunning 65,000-colour screen that never seems to be in much of a hurry and a keypad that, despite the handset's small dimensions, feels nice and big thanks to responsive buttons.

There's also a clearly marked joypad at the top. This should be good news for gamers, and it is, but only up to a point. Though the keypad and joypad are up to the job, the screen and processor really aren't, struggling with anything but the most vanilla of games.

Arcade or puzzle titles are fine, but anything featuring fancier graphics – Splinter Cell is available, for instance – looks so murky on the screen that it's more frustrating than exciting. Fast-paced action games are also out because the slow-reacting screen won't be able to keep up with anything overly frenetic.

The my401C does however come bundled with two games which show it at its best. Siberian Strike, Gameloft's warplane-themed Space Invaders clone, gives you the chance to defend the skies, albeit at a more sedate pace than you may be used to, while brain-teaser Slurp concentrates on your brainpower rather than the phone's power, as you link puddles through a maze to gain points.

Both the supplied games should be filed under 'mildly diverting' rather than 'riveting' and won't keep you coming back for long. There may be a few arthritic gamers out there who'll welcome the slow reaction times of this handset, but we wouldn't bank on it being a selling point. There is, however, more fun to be had from the Planet Sagem WAP site.

If you do start downloading, you'll soon need to expand the measly 13MB onboard memory; there's a slot for a MicroSD card, though one isn't supplied.

Also not supplied is a set of headphones, even though there's a music player on board, accessed by a dedicated button on the side of the handset. You can download tracks from WAP sites or via Bluetooth, and there's a handy USB connection for pulling music over from your computer – though if you want to do that you'll (you guessed it) need to supply the cable.

The VGA camera includes a 4x digital zoom and offers up to 640x480 resolution, which seems difficult to credit these days, though there is also a basic editing tool that enables you to add some effects such as sepia, negative and, erm, blur (you'll probably get enough of that anyway).

Sagem's my401C redeems itself slightly with its comparatively long battery life – we managed a good five days' use without a recharge.

A couple of years ago, this phone would have done very nicely, thank you. But things have moved on and a phone with this sort of spec, cheap or not, really does seem past its sell-by date, even as it comes on the market.

Sagem my401C

Back to basics handset that'll let you talk and text in style but little else. Gamers look elsewhere.
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