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- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 24 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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14 out of 15 people found this review helpful
2.5 stars
"Great features, but using them will cost you (and some of them are disabled!)"
Pros: Excellent speaker-independent voice dialing/recognition, good call quality
Cons: Uses standard Verizon interface, large, lackluster battery performance, displays zero signal strength when calls are actually possible, no Bluetooth-Computer connection possible, cradle charger
Summary: I purchased this phone a couple of days ago when Cingular had a nationwide network outage that affected my voicemail and calling. It was the final straw in a series of Cingular blunders. To be sure, this phone has exceptional call quality when compared to my previous Sony Ericsson T637. None of the "ocean" and static sounds that my Sony Ericsson used to make are present when making calls on this phone.
This phone also features Voicesignal, which is a piece of software that enables speaker-independent voice dialing from your phonebook entries or to any number you speak. It worked like magic the very first time-- NO training required. Quite a contrast compared to the trainable voice-dialing on my Sony which had me repeating the name up to 7 times before it called the right person or anyone at all.
When in EV-DO areas, the phone provided speedy access to the mobile internet which was useful for finding local movie theatres/show times and the like while out of town. In 1XRtt areas, the data rate is much slower although still useable for finding small amounts of information or phone numbers in the yellow pages.
Now for my gripe with Verizon. Verizon sold this bluetooth-capable phone to me claiming it could be tethered via bluetooth to provide data access to my laptop. This is nowhere near true. While the phone does support bluetooth, most of its functions are disabled by Verizon. The only profiles that are functional are the headset and audio profiles. No phonebook synchronization, photo transfer or data transfer of any sort is possible between a computer and this phone.
Why, you may ask? The answer seems simple- Verizon can make more money if they charge you to send your files and pictures back and forth over their service to your e-mail account. This means I cannot directly transfer any of the images I take on my phone to my computer. It's too bad that I'll never see how good the 2.0 megapixel images from the phone's camera really look and cannot tell you about that function of the phone.
Needless to say, I'll be taking advantage of Verizon's 15 day return policy on this phone. That means I'll never be purchasing the transflash card necessary to try out the built-in mp3 player. That reminds me of another design gripe- the phone does not accept standard headphones on the headphone port. You'll have to shell out some extra bucks and hunt down the appropriate accessory if you want to listen to your tunes.
To sum up, all you get in the box is the phone, a cradle desktop charger for home and a somewhat sparse instruction booklet. The phone has 2.0 megapixel camera, bluetooth (only for headset or audio profiles, see above), mp3 player (requires additional transflash card) and EV-DO. While the EV-DO is lovely, it's not available in most places yet and you can't use it to connect your laptop to the internet. Verizon, you're on the right track, just don't sell us equipment with disabled features.
- 3 replies to this review
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Absolutely right on!!!! Well said, you described my feelings. I wish I had read your comments before spending my $$$ and some on this Samsung product.
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When you set up multiple numbers for a single contact, one of the options available when entering the phone number is to make it the default for this contact. The option asks if you want this number to be the default, you click OK on yes and it confirms that this numberwas made the default. When you call someone using just the name it dials the first number in the list for this contact, it ignores the default setting. For an hour and a half I was on the phone with Verizon support and their final remark before I was dis-connected was that "Apparently that's how it works". In effect, they are saying that the phone was designed to malfunction, I say it is a software error and they should have a 'firmware upgrade' to fix this bug. Has anybody else noticed this apparent software error?
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I just want to say that it is a shame that you returned your phone. You could have easily transfered the 2.0 megapixel photos from your phone to your computer, using a trans flash card. I use a trans flash card to store MP3s to play in the phone. I also use the trans flash card to store the movies and pictures that I take with the phone and then later I transfer them to a folder on my computer using a USB card reader. It is super fast too. I don't have to email them to myself in order to store them on the computer(unless I want to). I just love this phone!
Also, I can listen to the MP3s using the phone headset accessory (you know, the kind which includes a mic for making calls, or I can listen through the speakers.
My battery life seems terrific as well. I only have to charge the phone every few days. Of course it's more frequent if I end up gabbing for hours, LOL!
The photo quality can be very very good with this phone as long as you hold it still while you snap the picture. I've gotten some incredibly sharp photos with it. You also have control of the resolution, so I ended up setting mine at 800x600 so it would be about the mid range.
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