Pantech Impact Review & Price – Pantech is no stranger to the sliding QWERTY phone, from the dual-slider Helio Ocean to the recent single-slider Pantech Reveal. But with its latest messaging handset, Pantech went for a flip shape similar to that of the LG enV3. It has an external keypad, dual displays, and a full QWERTY keyboard. Unlike the enV3, though, the Impact has a very impressive OLED touch-sensitive exterior. Aside from its unique style, the Impact has a good feature set that includes 3G, GPS, and an HTML mobile browser based on Opera. The Pantech Impact is available for $99.99, after a mail-in rebate and a two-year agreement, from AT&T Wireless.
Design
Though the Pantech Impact has a flip shape much like the LG enV3, it has a style all its own. Measuring 4.19 inches long by 2.04 inches wide by 0.7 inch thick, the Impact is much thicker and rounder. It weighs 4.49 ounces, so it’s quite a bit heavier, as well. The Impact’s patterned border and a silver chrome edge gives the phone a jewel-like look, especially when the OLED display is brought to life. When left idle, the front of the phone goes dark, leaving only a shiny black surface that’s prone to fingerprint smudges.
When awakened however, it looks quite stunning. The tiny 1.5-inch external display lights up, showing the signal strength, battery life, and date and time information. Even though it is monochrome, the white and gray text stands out and is positively luminous against the black background. The same goes for the touch-sensitive keypad, which glows pink or blue depending on the color of the phone.
You only have limited access to the menu from the external display. You can get to your address book, the messaging menu, the recent calls list, and the music player, and, of course, you can make and receive calls, but that’s about it. There’s no camera viewfinder or photo caller ID, because of the monochrome display.
Even though the keys are completely flat, they do have haptic feedback when pressed. You can adjust the sensitivity level and vibration strength of the keys. The navigation controls consist of two soft keys, an up-and-down toggle, the Talk and End keys, and the alphanumeric keypad. In standby mode, the up arrow is a shortcut to a new text message, while the down arrow is a shortcut to the address book. We found the keys to be quite responsive, but we did find the keypad a bit too cramped for our taste. You can type out text messages with the keypad if you wish, but we much prefer using the QWERTY keyboard for that.
