PCD Wrangler (U.S. Cellular)

The PCD Wrangler is one of the worst cell phones I've tested in recent memory. It's a leftover from 2006, an electronic Venus flytrap at the retail counter, waiting quietly to ensnare unsuspecting U.S. Cellular shoppers. The PCD Wrangler's $19.99 entry price, when coupled with U.S. Cellular's eminently reasonable monthly plans, makes it seem like a good value. But if PCD wants its new brand to gain a foothold in America, it needs to do much better than this.

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
Normally PCD helps distribute phones from respectable firms like HTC, Pantech, and Sharp, though it occasionally also stamps its name on inexpensive Chinese phones like this one. Let's begin with the Wrangler's good qualities. It has two. The Wrangler measures 3.8 by 1.9 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.9 ounces. It's a rubberized flip phone that should hold up to everyday bumps and knocks, as well as prove scratch resistant over the long term. The thin cut lines and exposed screw heads give it a bit of an edge, style-wise.

The external 1.2-inch OLED display is color, and looks slightly brighter than the average passive matrix external display. It's still pretty faded, though. Inside, the 2.2-inch, 240-by-320-pixel TFT active matrix screen exhibits average brightness and sharpness for its class. It's also the one clear giveaway this phone is new, and not a five-year-old model (which would have had a dimmer, 128-by-160 or 176-by-220-pixel LCD).

Things go downhill quickly from there, starting with the flat, membrane-style keypad. It features slightly bubbled, reflective keys that feel unusually stiff and cheap, if well separated. The keys are also backlit, but dimly and unevenly. Combine that with the soft gray used for the markings, and this isn't a phone you'll want to use in poor lighting (or with poor eyesight, for that matter). The five-way control pad isn't large enough and requires careful aim to use properly. The tiny function keys to either side?including the much-used Send and End keys?are much too small and close together.

The Wrangler is a dual-band, 2G 1xRTT (850/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi. Voice quality was awful, with a piercing, almost unintelligible tone in the earpiece that became tiresome to listen to within a few minutes. Transmissions through the handset mic sounded like a medium-quality Bluetooth headset: understandable, but overly computerized. Reception was below average. The display also emitted an annoying, high-pitched tone with my ear next to it while talking, and the handset became uncomfortably warm during use, even after just a minute or so. On our continuous talk time test, a fully charged PCD Wrangler lasted just 2 hours and 21 minutes before shutting down; that's one of the worst showings we've ever seen, if not the worst.

Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
The home screen is notable only for its unusually small fonts. The main menu consists of a grid of 12 icons. The Techsoft China TS 1.0 browser is a mess. Aside from being woefully sluggish?even for a 2G phone?mainstream sites like CNN couldn't auto-detect it, so you'll always need to enter the mobile URL (such as m.cnn.com, though it varies from site to site) if you want pages to appear with any kind of speed.

There's a built-in music player and a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack hidden behind a stiff, rubberized cover. Buried underneath the battery is a memory card slot with no rubber insulation, that only accepts 4GB cards (2006 again!); there's also 159MB of free internal storage. The 1.3-megapixel camera has no LED flash or auto-focus; it's fine for throwaway shots, but why bother? There's no camcorder or standalone video player. PCD preloads two games, one of which is Snake.

Anyway, you get the point. There's no shortage of cheap phones available, so you can easily do better than the Wrangler. Our current Editors' Choice is the LG Wine II?($39.99, 4 stars); for an extra $20, you get great voice quality, good looks, a real music player, much better battery life, and fast 3G data speeds. Otherwise, you can take your pick of the LG Envoy?($9.99, 2.5 stars), Samsung Chrono?($0.01, 2.5 stars), or Samsung Stride?(Free, 3 stars); each will give you good call quality and reasonable battery life. All three are also less expensive than the Wrangler.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 2 hours 21 minutes

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