When I was told a Pantech Impact was on its way to me for a review, I admit I didn’t have my hopes too high. Compared to their own Matrix, the Impact looked like a lesser phone and if there’s one thing this phone has reminded me of, it’s that looks can be deceiving.

To be fair, the Impact isn’t ugly, but when closed and off, it doesn’t really flaunt all it has to offer, either.

What the Impact Has to Offer

As I mentioned above, this phone didn’t stand right out of the pack to me. When I got the phone, I changed my opinion. It’s still not the sexiest phone I’ve reviewed, but it definitely has plenty of geek appeal, which became apparent once I turned it on. While off, the phone is dark and hides its front-facing external key pad. Once activated, however, the keys are all lit up, making the phone look like something a character in the movie Tron might have used. The whole face if the Impact is solid and smooth, so you wouldn’t know they keys are even there when they’re not lit up.

Conversely, when opened up, the internal keyboard is easily visible and physically well-defined. A good physical keyboard on a phone should always be easy to type on and that means feeling your way around. The Impact does a pretty good job of this with its raised keys and raised portions of the F and J keys to help you find your way around in the dark.

Besides the Tron-like look, the front of the phone makes the Impact easy to navigate without ever opening it up. The navigation is slightly hindered by only showing two lines of menu items at a time, but still makes answering and making phone calls, sending texts, etc a one-handed possibility.

The Lithium-Ion battery offers 3-5 hours of talk time with up to a couple weeks of stand-by. Opened up, the Impact provides a colorful 2.6″ 400×240 display and a system that is pretty easy to navigate once you get the feel for it. The outside of the phone contains a microSD slot for up to 32GB of storage, volume and Hold buttons, and the ear/mic/charging jack. This phone also offers just about everything you might expect from your typical smart phone, including mobile access to email, navigation, etc.

What’s Lacking

After the initial shock of what it offers, I took a step back to look for what the Impact was missing. While 2.0 megapixel camera is nice, I see a lot of phones shipping with 3.0 or more megapixels, so I thought Pantech could have squeezed at least that into this phone. Additionally, I love to use my choice of headphones with a cell phone and the Impact doesn’t provide this option. Beyond these two drawbacks, I didn’t see much missing with the Impact.

Conclusions

The Impact isn’t the prettiest phone I’ve seen at first glance, but a single touch brings it to life with a redeeming blue glow and opened up, it looks and acts even more like a smart phone. Although it wouldn’t be my personal first choice for a smart phone, Pantech packed a lot of functionality into a small package for a fair price (after 2 year agreement and rebate).

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