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CNET editors' rating:
3.5
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 17 reviews
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Product summary
The
good: CDMA and GSM world roaming; gorgeous internal and external color LCDs; solid camera; decent customization options; strong call quality and battery life.
The
bad: Expensive GSM roaming; no speakerphone, built-in e-mail access, or conference calling; comes with only a desktop charger.
The
bottom
line: Samsung's stylish world phone roams on both CDMA and GSM networks, but it's saddled with a hard-to-use keypad, and it lacks some key features.
Specifications: Carrier: Verizon Wireless ; Band / mode: CDMA 800/1900 ; Talk time: Up to 174 min ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 10/01/2004
Open the phone, and you'll find the vivid, 260,000-color internal screen. The 2.35-inch (diagonal) display looks gorgeous, and the text size is large, although it was difficult to see in direct sunlight. We were especially impressed with the animated menu, which shows a series of bubbles lined up in a colorful hallway; icons for each phone option are suspended in bubbles, and you click the five-way navigation control to move between the spheres. If you get tired of this elaborate and sometimes sluggish theme, you can always switch to a more traditional grid view. The main navigation keypad gets points for utility, but its design needs some work. A square four-way toggle has an OK button in its center, but both are much too small for bigger paws. Still, you get one-touch access to messaging, the Web browser, Verizon's Get It Now service, and one user-defined shortcut. There are also a dedicated camera button and two soft keys that activate the menu and open the phone book.
With silver horizontal bars in place of individual keys, as well as a black background, the A790's high-concept keypad certainly got our attention. Dialing numbers, though, was a tricky proposition, not only because the keys are small but also because two numbers share each button; when it comes to keys, boring and bigger are almost always better. Somewhat more sensible are the dedicated volume up/down keys on the left side of the phone and the one-touch camera button on the right side. We also liked the sliding cover for the headset jack on the mobile's top.
The Samsung SCH-A790 comes with a mixed bag of basic features. You get a 500-name phone book with room in each contact for seven phone numbers, an e-mail address, a Web site address, and notes. You also can assign contacts to caller groups or pair them with one of 30 polyphonic ring tones or a picture; images show up on the external display. Other standard features include a vibrate mode, a calendar, an alarm clock, text and multimedia messaging (in CDMA mode only), voice dialing and memos (again, CDMA only), a memo pad, a calculator, a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser, a world clock, and a to-do list. Missing, though, are such essential features as a speakerphone, conference calling, and POP/IMAP e-mail access; we recommend skipping the clunky, barely usable POP client that's available for download. We would also like to have seen an infrared port or Bluetooth in a phone this pricey.However, the A790 comes to the table with an ace up its sleeve: the ability to roam on CDMA and GSM networks. You can access both Verizon's U.S.-based network and Vodafone's high-speed networks in more than 100 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Web browsing is handled by Verizon's high-speed 1xRTT network. Switching between CDMA and GSM isn't a seamless process; to go from one mode to another, you must restart the phone, and some of the mobile's features won't work in GSM mode. For example, voice memos and commands are available in only CDMA mode, and text messaging is not available in all countries. Also, before you start phoning home from far-flung locales, save your pennies. Though the A790 comes with a SIM card for GSM, most calls made outside the United States cost $1.29 a minute, while in certain countries, such as the Maldives, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Latvia, the per-minute rate skyrockets to $2.49. But you're subject to long-distance charges as well. That means an additional 65 cents per minute for most countries, but it can range up to an astronomical $9.17 per minute if you ever visit Gabon. Sprint's version of the phone, the IP-A790, involves similar charges, but Sprint also makes you pay for the SIM card.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 17 reviews
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