The P777 ships with an integrated 1.3-megapixel camera/camcorder and has a bright "movie light" that serves to illuminate pictures and videos. The camera can take photos in six resolutions, from 1,280x1,024 all the way down to 160x120, at any one of four quality settings (Super Fine, Fine, Normal, and Economy). There are also five shutter sounds but no silent option. You can adjust the brightness, flip the image orientation four ways, use the 12X zoom at even the highest resolution, choose from nine color effects except at the two highest resolutions, and select from 12 fun frames. Other options include multishot and mosaic shot capabilities, as well as a self-timer. We like that each of the keypad buttons acts as a shortcut to a camera function, but it's rather annoying that you can't turn off the various sounds that play when you use the zoom and other functions. The camcorder can record videos up to 60 minutes in length at 176x144 or 128x96 resolution with or without sound. When you're done snapping photos or taking videos, you can send them via a multimedia message or upload them to your PC using the included USB cable. You get a very generous 100MB for saving photos, videos, and music. Though that's more than most other phones we've seen, it would have been nice if the mobile included an expansion slot.
One of the SGH-P777's coolest features is the built-in MP3 player. Considering the device's form factor, the MP3 player is quite robust. Hitting the dedicated MP3 button on the right spine fires up the application, and users can create playlists from music that's been transferred to the phone. We love that you can use a USB cable to move files and, thus, avoid paying for Cingular's data service. One gripe that we have with the SGH-P777 is the proprietary headphone jack, which forces us to use the earbuds that ship with the phone and strips us of the option to choose different headphones for listening to music. We couldn't even find an adapter.
Of course, you can personalize the P777 with any number of themes, screensavers, and sounds, and you can download extras from Cingular's Media Mall via the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. The handset ships with four games: Bobby Carrot, Airship Racing, Arch Angel, and Freekick.
We tested the trimode (GSM 850/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) Samsung SGH-P777 on the Cingular network in San Francisco. We had no problem finding a clear signal, and the volume on both our side and for our callers was sufficiently loud. Being an MP3 player, the SGH-P777 ships with a stereo headset that comes through with great sound quality.Battery life was mostly good. We got 4 hours of talk time on a single charge. While that's decent, it's an hour short of the rated talk time of 5 hours. For standby time, we managed 7 days, compared with the rated time of 8 days. According to the FCC, the P777 has a digital SAR rating of 0.87 watts per kilogram.
- See more CNET content tagged:
- Samsung Electronics
%20Cell%20Phone%20reviews%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/samsung-sgh-p777-at/4505-6454_7-31313306-2.html){kind=small}