2. Features

The stylish, silver-tone clam shell's outside features a headphone port and attractive speaker cutouts. it has a dark, almost space-gothic inset, that houses a camera lens, mini split-pea-size flash, and 1" (diagonally) exterior screen for battery indicator, signal strength, date, time, customizable wallpaper, status icons, and more. Inside, a 1.81" screen holds basically the same complement, for openers. Menus for the fingers or simple command menus for the voice, jet you right off. A full-duplex speaker shares the CLR (clear) button inside the clamshell and works well.

The VX5200 is 3.46" (H) x 1.85" (W) x 0.94" (D) when closed. Strangely, in the phone's specs, Verizon overstated the phone's weight and understated its battery life. Verizon says the phone weighs 4.16 oz, but with its 1,000 mAh lithium-ion battery in place, the VX5200 weighed in at a lighter 3.48 oz on my scientific scale. While I'm on the subject of weight, the phone's recharging cord weighs 2.74 oz.

Verizon also claims the phone's battery life is 3.3 hours. I tested the phone by placing it in one room and calling a land line phone in another room, my office. While I did other work, I played the sound from a TV set in the first room through the VX5200 and into the speaker of the land line phone. I tuned another TV set in my office to the same channel as the first, but I turned the second TV set's sound off. I was jolted from my work by the lack of entertaining sound after 4.18 hours.

The VX5200 comes with a world clock, a simple calculator, and a separate tip calculator that would work great in a group splitting a check equally. Enter the check amount. The default tip is 15%. Enter the number of pizza eaters. Modify the tip amount if you're generous or greedy. Up pops each person's share of the total with tip.

An alarm clock works simply and easily, with "snooze" and "dismiss" for those who either aren't ready now or never will be. There's also a calendar, notepad, 500-caller address book, and world clock. Thirty-two chord polyphonic ring support sounds good, and the phone includes 15 quality ring tones of truly varied styles. I will genuinely miss the melody I chose when the review unit goes back. Finally, Verizon offers lots of "Get It Now" toys for sale, including Mobile Web 2.0 (an advanced web and e-mail client), games, ring tones, wallpaper, pictures, and more.