- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 101 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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13 out of 13 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Great entry level smartphone"
Pros: Design, GPS, 3G, Email, Keyboard
Cons: Finger print prone, scroll wheel, IE, no voice
Summary: I've had this phone for about a week. I got it with 2 year contract for $150 with unlimited data plan (needed.) By the way I think this is one of the few smartphones you can get with insurance.
Design
This is a very well designed phone, the keyboard is one of the best I've used among new phones. great feel, the only downside is the fixed shortcut keys at the bottom all leading to AT&T applications. The scroll wheel is nice in moderation but does feel a bit loose. The high gloss does attract fingerprints and smudges easily but they can be wiped off...I love how it still feels like a phone in the hand. I do wish they had added a voice activation feature and of course I wish AT&T would get over themselves and include WiFi. However, the screen is BEAUTIFUL! I love the color and detail.
Sync
I have windows xp and syncing was easy. Setting up bluetooth sync was also straight forward and syncing with windows media player was also very easy.
Call Quality
In my opinion call quality was great, as long as its not on speakerphone, not that it was horrible, just annoying, then again it may have been the process to turning it on that left me with a sour taste. Still sounded great with 2 bluetooth headsets.
Email
This was the hardest thing on the phone, after about 5 minutes I had it up and working with no problems, just do your research before setting it up. The keyboard makes it so easy to type out messages I'm starting to do it more often. This is also where Windows Mobile has an edge over the iphone, i think its much more business oriented and makes sense where it needs to, but a simpler setup is always great.
Camera
As others noted the camera itself is weak, but the video function is somehow incredible, whatever Samsung did there was really good. I wish there was a flash for dark situations.
Internet
IE is not my favorite mobile browser and of course this is where the iphones "real" browser is incredible, but man do the pages load fast on this thing, I mean really fast. I haven't had a page download for more than 30 seconds yet.
GPS
I was worried about this having read some other reviews, but after I downloaded Google Maps it worked fine. It takes a long time to first connect to satellites, but after about1-2 minutes I consistently held 4-8 satellites. It is very accurate, more so than another reviewers experience. I just wish they hadn't locked the assisted part of the GPS so it would catch quicker. And telenavs a joke, I'm not gonna spend $150 and then $10 per month on top of that for a 2.4 inch GPS, but google maps is great for quick searches in hostile places.
Media
Now i know this is a smartphone but i thought the media was pretty good on this phone. Music sounded great and streaming video turned out great ans smooth even fullscreen. Movies on my card were a little choppy at times but not so bad I couldn't watch, and av sync was very good.
Battery
I like that they integrated the extended battery this time and it shows, I got about 2.5 days with this with the following use.
Constant email over 3G
About 1hour of internet
90 minutes of media
1.5 hours talk time
45 minutes GPS
and a LOT of playing around.
Windows Mobile 6
I enjoy the windows mobile OS but do see how it can be complicated for some. I wish it didnt take as many actions to do some things but it also requires less for others. All I can say is that the phone does a great job with what it has to work with, I found it to be very snappy, as long as you clear your task manager about once or twice a day.
Overall I would say this is a great entry level smartphone with some great features for the price. If you're very business oriented go for a blackberry, if you're media oriented go for the iPhone, but if you want a well rounded smartphone, this is it.
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