Digital Trends

NEC 525

July 8th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

Setup and Use

The first thing we did when we received this phone was to charge it for several hours before using it. We wanted to make sure it had a full charge through the testing phase. If you plan on syncing the 525 with Microsoft Outlook, you will need to purchase the USB cable which can be found for under $20, either online or at any AT&T Wireless store.

The on-screen menu is very colorful and easy to see thanks to the high-resolution screen. There are eight top level menu categories to choose from, each with their own sub categories. We found menu navigation to be relatively simple. The most commonly used features such as the “received calls” and “missed calls” lists can be accessed using the one-touch buttons on the keypad. And the camera can be accessed using the blue button located in the upper center of the keypad. If you store your phone book entries on your SIM card rather than the internal memory of the phone, you can access multiple phone books by tapping the phone book button more than once. This is a great feature for those that go through phones quickly and prefer to store their contacts on the SIM card. Overall the button layout and the menu system are above average.

Even though the 525 has internal antenna, we found the phone's reception to be very good. In a side-by-side comparison test between the Motorola MPx200 and the NEC HDM 525, both of which have internal antennas, the NEC was able to grab a better signal, and hold onto it without any dropped calls.

If you like playing with ring tones, the NEC comes with 30 preloaded 4-note polyphonic ring tones to choose from and even more that are downloadable from their website. The ring tones are very creative, and sound very clear and loud when you are receiving a phone call. The internal speaker seems to work relatively well, but seems to soften when you are talking on the phone — even with the volume all the way up. Speaking of volume, while we thought the volume controls looked good on the outside of the cover instead of the side of the phone, it will take a while to get used to using them. We were constantly closing the phone by accident while trying to adjust the volume. If you are talking on the phone, you will need to press the phone against your head while at the same time adjusting the volume to prevent the lid from closing. This might sound a bit strange, but it is the only way to change the volume while continuing to talk on the phone. The volume controls would be better on the side of the phone.

You should be able to use most phone headsets with the NEC 525 since it uses a non-proprietary jack. We were able to use the headset from our Motorola MPx200 phone on the 525 and did not experience any issues. The volume through the headset was loud and coherent on both ends of the call, but we wish that you could turn up the volume just a tad bit more.