Full review of Philips Xenium X2566 – Best mobile phone for senior members in our family
I had purchased this amazing feature phone last week. After using it for a while I thought to share my review of the phone with you. This may help you in understanding its functions and features before purchasing the same. I had purchased this phone from Philips Arena – Electronic Service Co. 152, Anna Salai, Chennai – 600002. Their contact numbers are 044-28460643 (Land Line) and 9840058150 (Mobile). In case you are from Chennai then this is a good place to buy any Philips Product.
If you do not have patience to go through the detailed review, then, in my opinion just go for it and gift this phone to our beloved elders and senior family members. If you are looking for a detailed review then please read on.
About this mobile phone
In today’s Smartphone obsessed world it’s very difficult to select a phone which is very easy to use, for senior members in our family. The 
range available is vast from Smartphone’s like iPhone 6 series to very basic feature phones, when it comes to decide a good mobile phone for senior members one gets confused easily by varieties of mobile phones available in the market. Generally senior members in family do not use social apps and are also not in to mobile gaming . Most of them would use a mobile phone for call and sms. A basic mobile phone will do for them. Those days are gone when basic mobile phones were sturdy with good call quality and ease of use. Now a day’s most of the basic mobile phones are ok to use, but they do not offer a good call quality and are not great in terms of ease of use. At times irritating noise cancellation, sudden call disconnect, low speaker volume spoil the call experience of our elder family members with the mobile phones. That’s why even today you would be seeing that our grandparents and senior members still prefer to use landline phones for calling. If you are looking for a mobile phone for a senior member of your family with an excellent call quality, superb speakers and sturdy build then look no further and buy the Philips Xenium X2566 for them. Trust me this is the best phone in this category and the highlight of this phone is the powerful speaker with equally good microphone….
What is the Price Range?
The MRP on the box is INR 5537 which sounds costly for a feature phone. Though I bought this mobile from Philips Showroom at INR 3990. Currently this mobile is available on online stores at around INR 4000 to INR 4500. I think as the phone get popularity and attention its price should come down. After using it for a while, I am sure that it’s going to be very successful model. I repeat this is the best phone in this category so far.
What are its key features?
Following are the key features of this mobile phone
- Colour Display of TFT 2.4 inch with 262K Colours
- Dual Sim GSM
- Up to 16GB Micro SD Support
- VGA Camera used also as Digital text magnifier
- Bluetooth v2.1
- Battery Li-ion 1630mAh
- SOS button for emergency call up to 3 Contacts
- Separate Torch Button
- Voice Recording
- Video Recording
- Music Player
- Easy Dialing and Reading
- Large Buttons and Big Fonts
- Superb Speaker
- Digital Text Magnifier
- FM On Speakers
- Single Button Lock / Unlock
- Single Button Access to Favourite Application
- Alarm
- Calendar
- Calculator
- eBook Reader
- Text To Speech
- Predictive Dial
- Missed Call Reminder
- Blacklist
What is missing?
- No GPS
- No 3G / Wi Fi
- No Pin / Password Lock
- No Headphone in the Box
What is in the Box?
- Handset
- Battery
- Charger
- User Manual
- USB data cable
- Cleaning Cloth
- Warranty Stickers
The handset feels solid and well built. The mobile phone features large buttons with big printed fonts for easy dialing or texting with big display fonts, you can now read the text on your screen comfortably without straining your eyes. The back cover can be removed easily by lifting it from the bottom right. The sim and SD card slots are under the battery. Sim can be just slided in swiftly. To insert the SD card, unlock the memory card cover by sliding it slightly and lift the slot to align your micro-SD card with the slot. Put it in place and press down the slot and lock by pulling it. Insert the battery which is partially charged.
The Mobile phone is quick to switch on and the display shows current time date and relevant operators information. The interface is graphical user interface and therefore easy to use. The keys are also soft and sturdy. On the left side the phone has volume control button and the M key. You can assign your favourite app to start with one press of M key. for example assigning FM radio to M key will help you to start FM radio by just pressing the key. By default FM is assigned to M key and if you desire to change the M key options you can use the general settings menu. Therefore this is a good feature.
The mobile has an option to set primary sim to make calls and send sms. You may select a primary sim number to be the default sim to make a call or send sms. You can also set the option to always ask and in this case the phone will ask you to choose the connection to be used to make a call or send sms each time, giving you quite a lot of flexibility. This phone supports up to 1000 contacts management. For contacts stored on the phone, you can add detailed information, like home number, birthday etc. Contacts can be copied from sim to phone memory. Therefore before moving to your new Philips Xenium X2566 you may have to copy all your contacts to the sim from your old phone.
The predictive dial feature helps for quick search and list your phone number while entering a number on the home screen. By typing a first few numbers you can reach the desire contact easily for a call or sms. If you set missing call reminder to on, you will get reminder if you have missed any calls. You can turn on blacklist function to set the numbers to be rejected to avoid unwanted annoying calls. use minute reminder to get reminder after the call exceeds the set time span once or repeatedly. The sms feature is easy to use and comes with predictive texting capabilities. By default sms are save on sim and you have option to save them on phone.
This mobile phone is designed with a dedicated SOS button to give you and your loved ones peace of mind about your well being in their absence. It allows you to identify a maximum of three different numbers where you can get immediate help when emergencies occur. You can activate the emergency call by pressing the torchlight for few seconds (long press). An ambulance tone will start for a few seconds to denote that SOS is activated, thereafter the mobile will automatically connect to these numbers until your call gets answered by any one of the parties. This feature could prove life-saving by providing easy access to immediate assistance in case you need help.
The speaker of this phone can be set to emit a louder-than-normal ringtone if necessary. You will not have to worry about missing important calls, especially over ambient sounds at home or loud competing noises on the go. The hands free call is a breeze on this phone. The speaker is loud and clear. You can hear other parties’ voice clearly. The microphone is also equally impressive, while speaking in hands free mode, I kept the phone at a distance of 40 inches to test and I was amazed to see that the other party is clearly able to hear. This was very useful considering the needs of our senior members in our family.
You can opt to switch on the TTS function, once activated, the phone will speak loud incoming and outgoing call numbers. You can use volume up / down keys on the left side to manage volume. This feature is very useful for our grandparents and people with challenged visibility. Activating TTS helps them to hear the number of the incoming call and also gives them comfort of dialing correct numbers for outgoing calls. You also have the option to deactivate the TTS function in case you prefer not to use this feature.
The FM on speaker is highlight of this phone. In other phones generally inserting headphones is a must to use FM radio on speaker / headphone. This phone gives you freedom from headphone and the inbuilt antenna / speaker function on your mobile means that you do not always have to plug in your earphones when you want to listen to the radio. Now you can enjoy your favourite radio stations out loud or in your ears, depending on your mood or circumstance and you can use volume keys to control the volume. The FM works on speaker loud and clear. You can record the FM as well. The interface is simple to use. You can scan the stations manually or automatically. This phone can easily replace your FM radio for sure.
This phone also comes with a dedicated switch (M Key) that you can customize to have your most frequently used function or application at your fingertips. Whether it’s to listen to your favourite FM radio station, or to check your busy social calendar, or to take some pictures with the camera when you feel trigger-happy, you can do so with a single press of the button. The M key feature is added to ensure ease of access of one of the favourite applications. By default the M key is set to activate the FM radio, though you can change it to activate applications like alarm, inbox, speaking clock, calendar, contacts, primary sim settings etc. This feature could prove very useful to our grandparents and senior members. For example to go to your inbox to see the sms you will first need to select message icon by scrolling up / down and then select inbox to see the message. If you set M key to open inbox, at one press of M key you reach inbox without any hassles. This helps in easy access of frequently used feature of the phone.
This phone also has Bluetooth to connect to a compatible Bluetooth device for exchanging data. To Connect to a Bluetooth device Go to Tools>Bluetooth, select Power and press “+ magnifying glass” button turn on the Bluetooth function. Select My device>Search new device, a list of available Bluetooth devices appears. Select the device you wish to connect. The pairing is made if your pairing request is accepted by the other party. To Receive files via Bluetooth Go to Tools>Bluetooth>Settings>Visibility, make your phone visible to other Bluetooth devices. Accept the request. The files received are saved to My files>Memory card>Others folder. If you do not use the Bluetooth feature for some time, you should deactivate it in order to conserve battery power.
You can use your phone as a digital magnifying glass, it is very useful when you read small print books, newspaper, magazines etc…To use your phone as a digital magnifier, flip the switch down (next to camera) to turn on the digital magnifier feature. There are two buttons with magnifying glass sign on them. The button with “+ magnifying sign” is used to zoom in and “- magnifying sign” is used to zoom out. These buttons are located at bottom left and Right of the phone display. Aim the lens at the text and press + / – buttons to zoom in and out. You may also press camera button by pressing ok to take a snap. Flip the switch up at the back of phone to exit. The digital text magnifier helps in easy reading and turns your phone into a convenient magnifying glass whenever you’re caught out by tiny print. Just hover the display screen of your phone above the selected text, whether it’s a restaurant menu, a service brochure or even your daily newspaper and the digital text magnifier will blow it up to a large easy-to-read format.
This phone has a dedicated switch at the right side serves to activate handy flashlight. If you do not like being left in the dark, the flashlight button feature on your mobile phone is perfect for you. This torch works even if your phone is switched off and therefore gets transformed into a handy compact flashlight in need, just by hitting the dedicated switch. There is also a single button to lock or unlock your phone. This simple button sitting at the right side eliminates the usual multiple steps required to lock and unlock handsets. A single press of the button will lock all functions and prevent accidental key presses when carrying it around. To unlock the phone, all you have to do is toggle the button. Please note that even if the phone is locked the SOS call, flashlight and digital magnifier features will work. This is brilliant design for ease of use. You do not have facility to lock this phone with pin / password though.
The camera does a decent job as magnifier, you can also take snaps and shoot video as well. The picture quality is limited because it’s a VGA camera so do not have high expectations. The music player feature helps you to play your music on SD card. You can also play Videos and record FM radio program and your own voice as well. Please set right your expectations considering this is a basic feature phone. You also have an eBook reader on phone and I have not used this feature so unable to comment now. The phone has a calendar, calculator and alarm feature. You can also have your photos as your wallpaper, though by default this phone comes with four wallpaper images. You also have option to set different ringtones for each sim and ringtones volume can be set to high enough to make phone scream. You can also set your favourite songs as your ringtone as well.
The battery of this phone goes on and on proves to be very powerful. You can also set battery low warning to emit a warning tone when battery is low. The user manual provides following tips to optimize the standby and talk time of your phone as well as the ways to extend its battery life.
How to optimize the standby and talk time of your phone?
- Always ensure that your phone profile is appropriately set to meet your actual usage. The Profile setting significantly impacts the phone’s battery performance. In general, Outdoor Mode is the most power draining setting while Silent Mode consumes the least amount of power.
- If you’re using a Xenium phone with a dual SIM feature, try to activate the 2 SIM cards only when absolutely necessary. If you are in a country with single coverage, deactivate the non-covered SIM to prolong battery usage.
- If you’re not using Bluetooth then turn off and be sure to lock your phone to prevent accidental pressing of the keys with the auto-lock feature.
- Adjust the intensity and duration of your display screen’s backlight to low or medium level and for the shortest duration. In general, the lower the backlight level and the shorter the duration, the more power you will save.
- Avoid using or placing your phone near magnetic objects (eg. a radio or television) or on metal surfaces, which will impact the network connection and ultimately drain power from your battery.
How to extend your battery’s life?
- Full charging and full running down of your battery will extend its life. Charge the battery once the low-battery warning comes on.
- Temperature will impact battery usage. Over time, heat will degrade your battery’s performance. Keep your phone out of the sun or a hot car. If in low temperature, place your phone in a warmer place (eg. your pocket), as battery capacity decreases as the temperature drops.
- Always use authentic accessories as they enable your battery to perform at its peak. Non-authentic accessories (eg. chargers) can damage your battery and even your phone.
Overall a definite winner in the category of basic feature phone. I would say this phone is a must for every senior member in our family. Infact this phone can be a good gift to our parents and grandparents. Though this phone is marketed as senior citizen phone,if you are from the current younger generation and want to have a basic feature phone…then go for this…this is unique useful and ofcourse different mobile phone…but remember no whatsapp, facebook, wechat, selfie etc. You can also have this phone as a backup phone. It would have been good if Philips could have provided headphone with this phone. Nevertheless FM / music on speaker helps here. The phone case and cover is not available as of now. Hope this detailed review helped you to understand the phone and its features. Please let me know your views.
Rajesh Dugar's Blog 