Sanyo Katana/Katana II

The Sanyo Katana II is a slightly sleeker update to the original Sanyo Katana. Both are ultrathin clamshell cell phones -- the Katana II is 0.57 inches thick, and the Katana is just 0.01 inches thicker. Both have been discontinued by Sprint but are still being sold by Kajeet as children's phones with parental-control options and a GPS locator so you can track your child's whereabouts. The Katana II also has 21 MB of built-in memory, compared with 5 MB for the Katana, but neither has a microSD memory card slot. Reviews generally say the Sanyo Katana and Sanyo Katana II are designed to compete against the Motorola Razr -- a market thought to include buyers who are more concerned with design and good call and voice quality than advanced features. On those counts, experts say, the Katanas succeed, although some reviewers suggest you can find more feature-packed rivals for about the same price. PCMag.com's Sascha Segan, for example, says the Sprint Motorola Razr V3m has a memory card slot, a better camera and access to Sprint TV. In reviews of the older Sanyo Katana, Segan and MobileBurn.com's Michael Oryl each suggest the Sprint Samsung MM-A900, since replaced by the A900m, because it has superior 3G network speed and a stereo music player.

Most reviews say the Sanyo Katana II has a pretty good 2-inch internal display screen: 240 pixels by 320 pixels. It also has Bluetooth 2.0 (an upgrade from the first Katana), support for text messaging, instant messaging and email, a standard WAP web browser and GPS. The contact list is a bit small at 300 names. The camera is merely VGA, and as with all such cameras, reviewers pan it, but there is a dedicated external camera key. Battery life varies greatly in professional tests, from about an hour more than the promised 3.5 hours of talk time to about an hour less than advertised. Some say the glossy plastic body attracts fingerprints and smudges.

We found the best professional reviews of the Sanyo Katana and Katana II at PCMag.com. Like CNET, PhoneArena.com, MobileBurn.com and others, PCMag does a thorough job of hands-on testing, but it's more consistent than others in suggesting better alternatives for buyers. ConsumerReports.org's most recent ratings chart does not include the Sanyo Katana and Sanyo Katana II. We found the most owner reviews at CNET, with some more at Amazon.com and PhoneScoop.com.