Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Sony Ericsson J132

The J132 is a monoblock phone available in two attractive colors. The phone weighs 76 grams. Its measurements are somewhat bigger than what we typically expected, at 103 x 45 x 15.3 mm. The phone feels sturdy in hands, and the texture of the back helps grip the phone well. Keys were slightly hard to press, and were evenly spaced. The keypad was stated to be dust-resistant. The four keys on the navigation pad also served as Shortcuts, which was a cool feature to quickly access the Calendar or FM Radio. Overall usability of the phone was good with Sony Ericsson's well thought-out design. Some serious issues that bothered us however are the lack of user profiles and the poor headset provided.

The J132 has a stereo FM Radio with RDS. The display was made of CSTN, displaying 128x128 pixels at 65K colors. The display on the J132 measures 1.5" diagonally. The total amount of user storage memory is 4 MB, but its useless in our opinion because you can't download or transfer any pictures on to this phone. The only things that use up the memory are the contacts and Voice memo feature, which is kind of handy for taking quick notes. Speakerphone volume was loud enough to be heard across the room. Other features on the phone included the Calculator, Timer and Stopwatch. There's a torchlight which is a cool handy feature when needed. Polyphonic ringtones were supporrted on the J132; however, we couldn't figure out how to get new ringtones on to this phone. Only form of messsaging supported was SMS, though a color screen was present.

The native Sony Ericsson J132 functions on 900/1800 MHz GSM bands, while the American version works on the 850/1900 bands. There's no form of data connectivity whatsoever on this phone, no GPRS, no USB, no Bluetooth or Infrared. That makes the J132 all cheaper; however, we're left wondering what the color screen is good for. The J132 doesn't have a browser too, we atleast expect a CSD based WAP browser on such phone.

The J132 is outstanding in this regard. The device was powered by a heavy duty batter, and is rated for a 9-hour GSM talk time. Standby time was also well over 3 weeks. Which in a way surprised us that an entry level handset could be so concerned about battery back up.

The cellphone J132 does prove a reasonable handset where you can separately buy a SIM card and use the phone as calls-only device. Besides this, features like 9-hour back up and a stereo FM Radio with RDS is also an added advantage.