Full Review: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=1259

Highlights:

"What do Steven Fry, Elton John and the guy who played Sam Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings have in common? The answer is that they could be part of the reason why Orange's 3G network coverage is so poor. During testing of the Sanyo S750, I had great difficulty getting a steady 3G signal in the three main locations I was in, namely at home, in Hertfordshire, in the office, in Ascot and believe it or not, in central London. My thinking is that if Orange had invested the money into getting its 3G network right, instead of paying celebrities huge sums for ads, it might have a more reliable network."

Never a good start!

"The design is also noticeable for the fact that there no number pad immediately visible with a central key surrounded by four directional keys and two keys either side sitting underneath the screen. The number pad in fact slides down from underneath the phone when required. However, it’s rather awkward and can’t easily be done one handed. It also makes the phone rather thick, and at 108 x 50 x 22 mm and 122g, it’s not the smallest phone in the world. It will definitely make its presence felt in a jeans pocket. The silver finish on the front is smart but the rest of it looks dull and it has a bit a of plasticky feel to it."

Plasticky isn't the most imaginable description of a plastic mobile phone, but I think the performance of the Orange 3G network had been the major hinderance.

"For expansion on the 8MB of built-in memory, the phone sports an SD card, which is useful for video downloads and MP3s. There is a built in media player and you can drag and drop MP3s onto the SD card, but I discovered that you had to format it in the phone first before it would recognise tracks. Even then I could see no way to skip between tracks in the media player so it’s not exactly going to replace an iPod any time soon. The tracks did sound good on the supplied earphones at least. The audio port on the phone is an extra small ‘micro-jack’ if you will, so you can’t use your own headphones, and while the supplied ones do have a button on the cord, I couldn’t get it to do anything. The phone will interrupt your music playing when you receive a call, though you can turn that feature off if you don’t want to be disturbed."

"Verdict

The Sanyo S750 is available free on Orange right now on any pay monthly contract but though I'm in the market for a phone, I can't say I'm tempted. The S750 has some going things going for it, such as a large screen and easy to understand interface but its cumbersome looks and Bluetooth quirks greatly lessen its appeal. But the problems I had with the Orange 3G network were the real deal-breaker leaving the Sanyo S750 well short of the 3G benchmark set by the Sony Ericsson V800."

So, really, a step backwards when compared to the SE V800. But I really don't find that surprising - the V800 is an award winning critically acclaimed handset on a network renowned for stability. The Sanyo is a somewhat fussy customer, and while the Orange 3G network can work perfectly it still leaves a lot to be desired.