- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 62 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Great phone but not the best option for media or heavy users"
Pros: Looks, feel, quality, size and weight
Cons: No headphone jack or easy way to transfer media
Summary: First off, this was a major upgrade. I've been using a Sanyo 6200 for the past 4 (!) years. It was an incredibly thin candy bar phone that had zero bells and whistles but was a simply a great phone. I've been waiting for an equally thin phone of high quality with a decent mp3 player and other goodies, though I probably won't use those functions often. Battery issues finally forced me to make a move.
I've had this phone for about two weeks and it's nearly as thin and unobtrusive in my pocket as my previous phone. Overall I am very happy with it. It seems to be very high quality (build, connection, voice quality, etc) and battery life is as good as you could reasonably expect - should be fine for most unless you are a very heavy user or maybe using the bluetooth a lot. My wife has the A900 "blade," which seems like a brick compared to this and seems to have worse battery life. With such a thin, light phone you're not going to have 12 hours of talk time.
The internal screen is fantastic and it's also nice to have a phone that doesn't smudge or scratch up on the outside like most of the other thin phones, thanks to the rubbery coating. I won't spend time rehashing the other positives that people cite because I agree with all of them. Still, as much as I like it, I can't give it the highest rating because of a couple of flaws that really detract from this phone's media capabilities:
1) In spite of being billed a media phone and having the capacity for a 1 GB micro SD card (picked up for $5 with mail in rebate), unless you have a card reader attached to your computer or have bluetooth and want to spend days transferring files, there is no way to get your music to the phone. I mistakenly ordered a "20 pin multiadaptor" after going to the Samsung site and seeing its picture (there is literally no product description). It has USB and headphone jack logos on it. Unfortunately it won't actually directly link to a USB cable and the headphone port is not standard size. A Samsung rep told me that even if I ordered their "20 pin to USB" data cable there is no software to support it on the phone! I happen to have access to an SD card reader so this isn't such a big issue for me but seems like a really bizarre oversight. As an aside, kudos to Samsung support for being reachable by phone and employing english native speakers.
2) You could do better than the included ear buds. . . if you were given the option! As it is you can only use the included Samsung headphones or bluetooth wireless headphones because there is no headphone jack. As far as I can tell there is no adaptor that goes straight to a normal size headphone jack. This is problematic for a few reasons. Some people may already have high quality headphones and don't want to lay out the bills for bluetooth ones after spending so much on the phone. I'm one of the many people whose ears don't mesh well with the bud style headphones that are included. Their sound quality seems OK but they're useless to me because they won't stay in my ears. Also, say for instance you wanted to use this with an FM transmitter to listen to music in your non-bluetooth car. Most of those work through the headphone jack so you're out of luck.
Still, overall I am very satisfied with the phone. I didn't buy it for the mp3 or camera capabilities (though a flash would have been nice) - there are probably better options out there for that. I was looking mostly for a thin high quality phone and it hasn't disappointed in that regard.
I haven't tried it yet with a bluetooth headset (for calls; not music) but have one on order and may update my post based on the results. I was able to transfer files from my computer by bluetooth just fine, but be warned that it is slow for large files due to the limitations of bluetooth.
- 4 replies to this review
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very great assesment of the phone. First off I really love the phone. i bought it after becoming to frustrated with the samsung upstage. their both samsungs, have the same attractive menu designs and capacity to hold music/media with the micro sd slot, and this phone had none of the flipping/touch pad headaches of the upstage. but you don't get the convenience of included extra plug ins that the upstage had. the upstage came with no blue tooth headset but it did come with an adapter to plug in headphones or fm transmitter in your car, that had a audio input so you could either put in any headphones and talk or put in your fm transmitter and listen in your car. having no usb computer hookup is annoying, which comes with the upstage as well. I bought a bigger micro sd card off of e-bay for 25 bucks and it came with a usb adapter so i can drag and drop music files straight to the card from the computer and plug it into the phone. The battery life is pretty short, and i found that out the hard way yesterday when i was driving to visit a friend and it died on me just as i was getting some direly needed directions. all and all, i really like this phone, this review was spot on though. you'll definately want to get a bigger micro sd card with a reader or cable to transfer files to the phone, and a better headset to use the media functions. i've used it when i've been out jogging and it's worked well but the only issue i've had is the included headphones that kind of hang on the bottom of your ears and don't want to stay in. using the headphones in the car driving and talking was fine for me though. anyway, thanks again for the good, honest review.
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title says it all, no BS about media flaws etc. Good review of the PHONE!!!!
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I am also considering a "major upgrade," as I have been using MY Sanyo 6200 for 5 YEARS (!!) For some reason not too many people seem to have bought this phone, but it is a gem. Much like this reviewer, I have been waiting for a true UPGRADE in size (i.e. smaller) and performance, and thus far Sprint has offered nothing to tempt me.
My Sanyo 6200 would still be perfect (got the after-market extended-life battery a year ago) if it weren't for the lack of text messaging. (I do NOT care about making my phone a multimedia entertainment machine.) So I decided to look again for new phones, and finally I saw one that MIGHT be good: the Samsung M610.
I am reluctant to get a non-Sanyo phone as my last 2 have been such troopers (my phones tend to jump out of my hands a lot!) -- but the Sanyo Katana seems like too much of a step backward in the sleekness compartment compared to my beat-up monochrome 5-year-old 6200. So -- after reading this perspective of a satisfied 6200 user upgrading to the M610, I am (pretty much) sold! (It's too bad it's wider than the 6200's nice candy-bar shape)
Anyway, I appreciate the review! -
blah blah blah... I want a phone that is a phone like this customer, it is nice to know what does and does not work in regards to functions. great article
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