Samsung Mobi SCH-U620 user reviews (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Great easy slider.

Cons There are none for me.

Summary I have read all these reviews and they kept me from buying this phone. My husband tried to talk me into getting the u620 because it had everything I wanted in a phone. I held my head up high and said "Nope it has bad reviews" and got the U740 instead and I hated it.
When I took the U740 back I thought what the heck and got the u620. I mean I had another 15 days to return it if I hated it too.

I LOVE IT! I am so glad I did not listen to all the bad reviews and took a chance.

The slider is wonderful. I have sore hands and never could open a clam shell with just one hand. The u620 is so easy to slide one handed. I have also paired it with a Samsung Blue tooth head set. It was also very easy.

The pictures are wonderful. 10 times better than the U740 and they are suppose to have the same camera. I just can not get over the difference. It is definitely not the same. I guess I am really behind the times for using my PHONE as a camera. I do not need zoom or other options like that. I use my camera phone for pic Ids and incase of an accident for the insurance company. If I want great pics then I use my real camera.

I am not sure what others were saying about a slow menu. Yes it is animated but works plenty fast for me. If you don’t like it then set yours to rainbow. But I like the little TV icons.

Since I bought this as a phone to be used as a phone and not a text machine I can not comment on those issues. I maybe send one text a month and it worked great for me.

I am not into changing my ring tones a lot so I paid for a download and am happy with it. Again I would never try to down load a MP3 tune so no comment there from me.

I have no, NONE!!!, issues with backup. All my numbers, addys, and emails from my old phone are on my new phone. I even tried a new back up an hour ago and it worked fine. Not one glitch there for me.

As for the calendar glitch. I do not use mine so again I can not comment on that. I use Yahoo and it text me reminders to my phone. I did however use the alarm feature and love it!

The calls are very strong even made call from with in the middle of a store without ever losing the person or the strength of call. This was a big improvement from my old 710 which I thought was good.

I hated the keys on the U740 they were too small. I also hate using my sister’s RAZR, I never could dial just one number at a time. I love to dial on the u620 and do not have to backtrack to clear mistakes.

The TV is great!!! I live in the Seattle area and use the TV often enough. Once in traffic to appease fussy kids, thank you Sponge Bob, and another to watch something other than infomercials at 1 am. I have used it other times but those were my biggest life saving times. Nice to have an option. I know one person was upset when they could not view American Idol when it was on TV but you have to think of this of 8 different channels each with their own unique programming. Just 8 more choices as to what is on TV.


So here is my final thoughts.

This is a phone.
Not a PDA, camera, or Ipod as such it works beyond the average. If you want any of those items then this is not the phone for you.
If you want an easy to dial, strong and user friendly phone with an added benefit of TV then this is the phone for you.

Pros small, good screen, good battery life

Cons listed below

Summary This phone has some definite positive features including:

*Strong built - Doesn't move side-to side like some sliders do

*Customizable EVERYTHING-colors, font

*Has access to MSN,Yahoo, and AOL messengers

*Solid Bluetooth

*Very good battery life (as long as you are not using the TV feature...)

*Very crisp 240x320 resolution screen.

However, there are a few features that could have VERY easily been added that they chose not to add.

*the TEXT message feature DOES NOT ALLOW you to ADD WORDS TO THE DICTIONARY. Thats right, if you use specific industry jargon, like to swear a lot or use other innapropriate language (like myself and so many others do) you will have to spell out the word EVERY TIME. The lack of this one feature is enough to make me return it. For example, if you want to call someone a curse word that begins with the letter F, you need to type in [def][tuv]000[abc]0[jkl][def][pqrs]0000. That's 14 characters for a 6 letter word, using the T9. If you use just the abc mode, it takes 15 keystrokes. While you are thinking to yourself, "I wouldn't use that word", think about any other possible words/slang/jargon you use a lot, and think about having to spell it out every single time. LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME. I'm going to send this back and get a Nokia or an LG phone, because all their phones let you add words to the dictionary.

* You CAN NOT use your own mp3's as your cell phone ringtones. Why? Because they want you to pay for it through the VCAST service. Although you can record your voice, you CAN NOT use these as ringtones either. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID idea Samsung.

* It does not let you really look at the pictures you take. Sure, you can preview them, but it doesn't let you ZOOM in on them (despite the fact that is has a ZOOM feature, it will only zoom in slightly, so that the picture will fill up the whole screen... lame.)

*Because the menu's are animated, everything takes a long time. Adding all of the names and information to the phone initally takes FOREVER. It took me about 90 minutes to put in all 60 or so names in my phone.

So, other than the above mentioned this, this phone is seemingly perfect, but if any of these features is too annoying for you, don't get this phone. I can live with all of them except for the lack of ability to add words to the dictionary. Weak.

Pros Lots of features, Large (240x320) clear screen

Cons MP3 player missing features, poor quality 1.3mp camera

Summary First let me preface this review by saying this is the best phone I have ever owned. It's my first new phone in 2 years and this phone is a lot better than my previous phone.

I signed up for unlimited messaging and the V-Cast pack so I can really put this phone to the test. The TV service isn't in my area yet so I couldn't try that. Also I never get lost so I had no need to try out the GPS navigation feature which costs $10/month.

As a phone it works great, the sound is clear, the speaker phone is decent for such a small phone. The buttons on the phone are big and easy to dial. The call history and contacts are easy to access. The Verizon backup assistant app on the phone allows you to enter all your contacts on a website and then transfer them to your phone. The only fault with the phone function is if you are not careful you will cover the antenna with your fingers while holding the phone.

I have no complaints about battery life. I usually charge my phones every night, and this phone as had no problems lasting all day with fairly heavy use. I did test it once by not charging it, and the phone died at about 4:00PM the next day.

Web browsing on the phone is fast thanks to EVDO. Although the phone doesn't have a full browser, normal sites can be visited and usually you can get the info you want off them. Also most major sites have mobile versions. I have no problems visiting google, gmail, logging in to my bank, and other sites on the phone.

Instant Messaging on the phone works good as well. You can login to AIM, Yahoo, and MSN, and IM away. Since the keys are big it's easy to type fast using the T9 method. You can close the app and you still stay logged in. You'll get an alert on the phone if someone IM's you and then you can re-launch the app and start talking.

V-Cast videos are a neat little feature, but nothing I'm really jumping up and down about. Most of the content is just news clips, sports highlights. They have Youtube, but it's like a mobile version where only the most popular videos are available. I did think it was cool that I could watch the skateboarding dog on my phone just like on the iPhone commercials. The phone also supports mp4 videos. I converted some videos on my computer and copied them to the SD card. I had no problems playing the videos on my phone.

The MP3 player works good also, it supports playlists, shuffle, browsing by genre and artist. You can buy music through the phone (which I haven't tried). You can transfer music through the phone using Verizon's software, or just use Windows Media Player's sync function. You can also pull the SD card out of the phone and use a card reader for the computer and just copy the files directly there. This is the method I use. The phone has a standby mode which turns off the phone functionality but still allows the phone to be on. This allows you to use the phone on airplanes to watch videos and listen to music. Standby mode is a couple of menu's deep, but it's there.

Now here is the biggest fault with the phone. The MP3 player has no "lock" feature. There is no way to lock the keys to prevent accidental button presses. Also when the MP3 player is on, the screen never turns off (it only dims). If you press "end" while the MP3 player is on, it closes the MP3 player and it has no "resume" function. So you'll have to start all over again. I really wish they put just a little more thought into the player app.

I've only downloaded one game so far, but this game has far exceeded my expectations. I downloaded Tiger Woods golf. This game is full 3D and plays really well. This phone has the power to push some decent 3D game graphics.

The camera on the phone really isnt' too good. It's 1.3mp. There is no zoom, and the colors don't look quite right. The camcorder in the phone is decent it can record 320x240 and the length is only limited by your SD card size.

The phone can also record audio in 1 minute chunks. You can also record your phone calls, but again only in 1 minute files.

The phone has a few other tools, such as alarm clock, calculator, calendar, stopwatch, world clock. These are a fairly simple and straight forward, and work pretty well.

The phone's menu system really isn't the best in the world. It's basically several main pages with numbered lists of options. There are two "themes" to choose from, TV and Rainbow. The main screen of TV is slower, but allows you to press numbers 1-5 to go directly to the option page. Rainbow is faster scrolling but doesn't allow the numbered shortcut on the main screen, but it does after that. Some of the options are a couple of menus deep and can be hard to remember where they are. There are 4 programmable shortcut keys, but there is a limited set of options these can be set too. For example, "Standby Mode" cannot be programmed to one of the shortcuts, and you have to press OK-5-5-1 to get to it. This can get annoying quick for frequent flyers.

One last slightly annoying thing about the phone, The screen stays on while charging. So now I have to keep my phone in a drawer at night while charging so the light won't keep me up.

Pros Quality look/feel, great menus, voice recognition for text messages

Cons clip to attach power cord, that's it!

Summary Wow, what a great phone. Surfing through the myriad of ratings here on C-Net, and looking at all of the phones in the store... it was hard to tell which phone I wanted to buy. With a desire to try Verizon's new TV service, I chose the new Samsung SCH-U620 over the LG. Great choice. It was not until I got the phone home did I realize how nice it really is. Very well made, solod construction and excellnt finish. Samsung makes a quality item. The animated menu (w/ the television theme) are a nice departure from Verizon's boring and cumbersome menus. The phone is packed w /features, has an excellent and sexy display, and lots of character. I love the bright battery and signal displays. I replaced a Motorola Razor V3c (which I had good luck with) and I coul dnot be happier. This is a great phone