At first glance, the Kyocera Lingo looks like a fancy, full featured phone. After you use it a bit, you'll find that it does a good job on several key tasks -- but on others, you might be underwhelmed by its capability.

My son, Dan, helped me put the phone through its paces.

Running on the Cricket 3G network, the Lingo has a color screen and standard numeric keypad on the face, and opens to reveal a QWERTY keyboard inside.

The Lingo's designers seemed to take the Microsoft strategy of developing software for the phone. They created a user interface that took fewer steps to do common tasks and hid the manner in which they did them, making the phone, in some ways, a bit easier to use. But they also decreased the ability to customize it.

When I pressed the Talk button in the same way as you do on other phones, instead of bringing me to the usual screen showing my most recent calls, it automatically activates voice dialing. I can then say "dial" and speak the digits of the number I want to call. The Lingo recognizes the digits quickly and accurately. If I want to dial a number that I had dialed earlier, all I need to do is press the Talk button again to see the list.

Although this push-to-voice-dial capability is significantly different from other voice-dial phones, such as various BlackBerry models, it performed for us accurately.

Going straight to voice dialing may make it easier for some users and slightly more difficult -- but not much more difficult -- for others, who would prefer to pick from a list. It's the difference between pressing the Talk button once or twice in a row.

Similarly, it's very easy to store a new contact by manually entering it into the phone, but not as easy to store a number that came in using a text message. Dan, the prolific texter, found this an annoyance. It didn't bother me, since I do very little texting.

With its full keyboard, the Lingo should be perfect for heavy texters. But Dan and I agree that the keys are too small, thereby making it more difficult to text than should be the case. But we both liked the rubber surface on the back of the phone, which makes it stay in place more easily -- without sliding off the surface on which it is resting.

It also has a few interesting features that are different from the standard phone. You can define a "frequent list" of people you call often. Whenever you open your contact list, those people will show up at the top of the list, so you don't have to scroll through long alphabetized list to find the listings for your office, your mother or your best friend's cell phone. This feature is one that I would use often -- and is offered on the Lingo in addition to the usual speed dial buttons.

The voice commands also are more sophisticated than the standard cell phone. Although you need to record the names of the people you want to dial by voice (something that shouldn't be necessary), you also can set the Lingo to answer the phone on your voice command; and you can even have it wake up by your voice command after you put it to sleep to conserve the battery.

We've posted more information on megabyteminute.com about the Lingo, including information about its camera and flashlight mode.