Decent phone, decent service
Written: Sep 07 '04
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Pros: Nice screen, okay reception, very small phone.
Cons: Lots of what I consider "basic options" missing or hard to use.
The Bottom Line: If you want a cheap, basic phone, and don't mind missing functionally that is intuitive on every other phone, get it. It's a good free phone, but that's it.
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| v65magnaebayer's Full Review: Samsung SGH-X426 |
It seems that every Samsung phone is different. They can't come up with a good interface and stick with it. My last phone was the Samsung A420. It was a decent phone, but when I ran into screen problems and reception problems Sprint refused to replace my phone at no cost to me. So I switched to AT&T because they advertise good reception and were able to get me switched over, and I could retain my Sprint phone number.
So, here's the lowdown. The reception *is* better than my A420 with sprint... but not that much better. My home is in a reception dead zone, and even with AT&T I have 0 or 1 bars in my own home. However, unlike with Sprint, if I stand in an area that has only 1 bar, the call will usually complete without disconnecting, and so far there's never been any garbled conversation. My Sprint phone would disconnect at least 2 or 3 times during any given conversation, and I'd have to call my friend back. It was really annoying.
Now for the features... or lack thereof. The X426 is a very, very basic phone. I thought my A420 was basic, but this phone is much more so.
What they did wrong:
- With my last phone, I could attach a ringtone to a specific number. With the x426 I can only attach ringtones to Groups (Friends, Family, Work, etc).
- There is no voice dialing.
- There is no NORMAL RING! I just want the phone to go "ring, ring", not play me a song. Ugh.
- The volume control works great in a call... but it's attached to the KEY PAD TONE VOLUME instead of the ringer volume! Which means when I go into a hospital, movie theater, library, or ANYWHERE I have to navigate the menus to turn the volume down. This is really, really annoying. My last Samsung phone had this lower the ring volume, and I'm wondering what they were thinking changing this. Also, there does not appear to be a way to turn the volume of the games down or off, which makes them USELESS. I usually play games while I'm waiting in line somewhere. Nobody wants to hear my sound effects or music while I play.
- The phonebook stinks. On my last phone, I could make one number primary and the rest secondary, so when I pressed Send it would dial the primary number (Or I could hit the menu button to dial the secondary). Now when I press Send, it lists all the numbers, and I have to choose one. Another annoying button press. Plus, there's no way to order the numbers in the list that pops up. They're in the order they were entered, with the most recently entered at the top.
- No external caller id screen.
- The phone doesn't get the time and date from AT&T, you must set it manually.
What they did right:
- The phonebook scrolls right away when you press the first letter of the name. My last phone waited like 3 seconds before going to the name.
- The screen is nice
- The organizer and calander are nice features.
- The phone is SMALL
- Reception is okay. Not great, but better than my last phone.
- The phone can vibrate and ring at any volume. My last phone would only vibrate when the ringer volume was either at maximum or off.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1.00
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Epinions.com ID:
v65magnaebayer
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Member: Charles Smith
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 0 members
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