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The VGA camera takes pictures in three resolutions (640x480, 320x240, and 160x120), and you can choose from three quality settings (Fine, Normal, and Economy). Other features include a 5- or 10-second self-timer, five color tones, 10 fun frames, brightness and white-balance settings, a zoom, and four shutter sounds, though no silent option. When finished with your shots, you can save them to the phone's memory, upload them to an online album, or send them in a multimedia message. Picture quality was quite admirable for a VGA camera. Though colors weren't terribly bright, they were still distinct, and object outlines were sharp. Amateur directors are out of luck, however, as the SPH-A640 does not support video recording.
You can personalize the SPH-A640 with a variety of screensavers and alert sounds. If you want more options or ring tones, you'll have to download them via the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. A number of trial applications and demo versions of five Java (J2ME) games are included as well, but you'll have to buy the full versions for extended play.
We tested the dual-band, dual-mode (CDMA 800/1900; AMPS 800) SPH-A640 in San Francisco using Sprint's service. Call quality generally was good, with sharp clarity and adequate volume. Occasionally, callers sounded robotic, but it was nothing particularly bothersome. On their end, callers could tell we were using a cell phone, but they didn't report any problems. Speakerphone calls were marginally worse if we were inside, but outside in noisy situations, it was hard to hear at all. We paired the phone with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset and enjoyed acceptable call quality, but the volume was somewhat low.
The Samsung SPH-A640 has a rated talk time of 3.8 hours, and we managed to eke out 4 hours of talk time in our tests. Our standby time tests resulted in 11 days of battery life. According to FCC radiation tests, the SPH-A640 has a digital SAR rating of 1.23 watts per kilogram.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 49 reviews
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8 out of 8 people found this review helpful
"This phone is much better than the equally-rated Sanyo 3100. . ."
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