I have had this phone for the past week and well, overall I am impressed. A few years ago I would only consider buying Nokia phones, as they were for me the best quality and had the best features, however since then my family have been through a whole crowd of Samsung's and with a lot of success.
--Appearance--
The phone itself is a stunning model. For me it is one of the best looking phones available on the marked. However, to activate the keypad you have to slide the phone up, in doing this it is almost instinctinve to drag the screen part up with your thumb. This is all fine, except when you try and look at your screen afterwards. The gloss casing over the screen is very prone to finger print marks. This is avoidable and after a couple of days, I soon learned to pull the keypad part down.
The screen is very impressive, it is bright and displays pictures beautifully, and the music player has some pretty neat graphics. It plays videos well so long as the screen is clean, otherwise it is nigh on impossible. The backlight on the screen is very effective, but when the phone is on charge, the light remains on constantly and there is no setting to stop this. If is a pretty annoying problem, but can be solved by placing something on top of the phone.
The menus are layed out in the typical Samsung way (although this can be changed to a list view) and the colour schemes are customisable, as you would expect from a phone like this.
9/10
--Connecting to a computer--
The
package comes with a CD containing Samsung software and a driver to connect the phone by USB2. It is also compatible with bluetooth, which is very easy to set up and control using the windows interface. However, Mac users beware, this software is only compatible with Windows. This problem is easily avoided if your Mac has bluetooth, but otherwise you may have to buy a dongle, or use a Windows PC.
Being a Mac user, this was initially a problem, but by using bluetooth it was resolvable, although not with a Samsung software interface like Windows users get.
7/10
--Camera--
The phone has a 2.0MP camera, which has a flash. By default it makes the annoying noises like the shutter and zoom, but these can be turned off pretty effortlessly. There are settings to change the shooting mode (single shot, multi-shot, mosaic shot,) effects (B&W, negative, sepia, antique, moonlight,) 30 different frame options, flash, timer, and loads of features such as white balance available from shortcuts (using the keypad) You can also change the image size and quality to utilise the space more effectively. The digital zoom is a useful tool but does sacrifice image quality.
This camera can be accessed from the start up screen by pressing and holding the camera button on the right hand side of the handset.
There are also many of these options available in video camera mode.
8/10
--Applications--
-Music player
The music player has some basic options such as shuffle and loop and can be played in the background whilse using the phone for other functions. It has a nice looking interface, with some moving graphics when you play your music. When played loud, the music can sound a bit tinny, but you can use the supplied headphones to listen to it instead. For me, the music player is nothing special, but a nice function to have 'just in case.'
-Voice recorder
With the same interface as the music player, but different options, the voice recorder is again another practical option, however I see it as a 'just in case' option rather than an every day utility.
-Image editor
Here you can add effects to photos on your phone, transform them (resize, rotate, flip) crop them, insert images, clip art, emoticons and text, and print via bluetooth. It is a useful tool for playing around on, but it's no photoshop...
-Java world
My handset came with 6games: Bobby Carrot, TimeRiderII, Lemmings, Fifa2006, Asphalt Urban GT and Midnight Pool (although the last 4 are try and buy [ie demos]) These are the standard java phone games, no fancy graphics, just some basic light hearted entertainment.
-World Clock
Just a standard world clock with daylight saving features.
-Alarm
Although the alarm tone cannot be changed by default, the phone does have one very nice feature, 'Auto Power.' This means that you can turn your phone off, and it will switch itself on when you set an alarm. This is useful for conserving battery and getting rid of that bright screen of a night time.
-Calculator -Convertor -Timer -Stopwatch -Memo
^- These functions are 'do exactly what they say on the tin' functions, there is not a lot to say about them really
8/10
--Phonebook--
The phone book is pretty standard, it can store 1000 entries on the phone and 200 on the SIM card (though this may vary between networks)[This is with Orange, just for the record] There are no vital features left out and I have had no complaints, so top marks for this...
10/10
--Calendar-- With the option to add entries under 3 different headers, the calendar is again a pretty standard function on phones nowadays (anniversary, task, appointment) The memore on the phone allows 100 of each header (ie 300 entries in total.)
200 SMS 3072kB MMS 3072kB Email 80 Broadcast messages 50 Push messages 20 Configuration messages - with extra space available on the SIM card.
There is one very cool option on this phone, Vivid text messaging. This basically plays your texts to you, by typing them word by word on the screen, however if your text includes words like love, home, house, phone - the phone converts the word into a little animated picture of a heart, house or phone respectively. There are probably more animations than this, but these are the ones which I have come across to date. (to find out more google "vivid text messaging")
9/10
--Battery life--
Here is one of the few set backs with this phone, the battery life initially was very poor, it lasted 1.5days. However, that day was what I would call 'heavy usage' with over 150 texts being sent, some phone calls, some bluetooth sending, some photos being taken, being viewed, videos being viewed etc etc, which is more than a typical day. Since then, I have turned off bluetooth and only have it on to use it, and the novelty of the phone is wearing off, so I am viewing less videos etc. It now lasts about 2.5days without any charge with standard usage.
5/10
--Keypad--
-Touch sensitive This keypad is a cool little feature, however to start off with it is a pain in the back side. Your fingers will accidentally press buttons and woul will connect to the internet by accident, and phone 'Aaron' (or whoever is at the top of your phone book. It will basically be a nightmare, but you do get used to it, and after a day or so, it is no longer a problem, except one thing. When i am on the phone, I often press the phone against my cheek. DON'T DO THIS! I have accidentally pressed the end call button about 30times, and effectively hung up on several people. This is espescially annoying if you have been on hold listening to greensleeves for about half an hour... On the otherhand, this function adds a lot to the cosmetic appeal of the phone, and the backlights on the buttons are very snazzy.
5/10
-Standard This keypad is very much a standard keypad, it has no special functions, but the backlight is good and the buttons have a good feel to them, which makes texting very easy and stressfree.
9/10
Overall:
+ Really good looking Some great funtions Good camera with effective flash
- Cannot set your own tones to alarms Keypad can be over sensitive Fingerprints on the screen
8/10
I would reccomend this phone to a lot of friends, however some older or very young users may find it difficult to operate.
Hope you enjoyed this review..
JP
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Sep 19th, 2006
exceptional by (32%):
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