Review of the Samsung A900
Written: Nov 08 '06
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Pros: QVGA Screen 1.3mp Camera BT-SPK-Video MP3wNice Speakers Well Designed and Well Constructed
Cons: Very poor battery life and Very limited memory with no option to expand it
The Bottom Line: All around Excellent feature rich phone that only lacks in memory and battery life.
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| nerys71's Full Review: Samsung SPH-A900 Cellular Phone |
This is a bit of an informal review.
I am not fond of flip phones. In fact I really don't like them. They scream snap me in half especially if you sit on them while open.
However if I am going to have a flip phone this is a really nice option for one. It is really only lacking in one regard which I will touch on later
This is a sprint phone.
-- Quality (Construction)
The build on this phone is really pretty impressive. For a flagship high end phone this is expected. The part fit together well and move well in relation to each other. The at first annoying but later appreciated covers (the covers for the charging jack and headset jack) have proven themselves durable and able to take the strain of daily use and bending. Having these covers improves the phone both cosmetically (clean lines no gaping holes) and functionally (keeping the dirt out) This is the only phone that I have never had to clean out the wide connector because of tarnishing dirt or corrosion. I am a believer in attached covers now.
The hinge is so far impressing me. I am paranoid about it breaking so I check it often for looseness and so far its has remained tight and smooth. No sign of weakening.
on a basis of 1-10 I give this phone a 9+
-- Quality (Design)
This part is a bit subjective so take this with that forknowledge. IE we all like different things. This part is physical design.
I like the lack of a thick lip like the razor. I would have preferred a larger external screen but it is not overly small and is usable (this is my like or candy bar phones coming through as far as candy bar thing sanyo 6400 not nokia)
The button layout is nice and the numbers large enough to touch dial though there is no distinction between keys so you have to learn where they are.
I do not like this smoothness in the upper section. the "ring" should be more defined as its easy to accidentally push the "back" key just below the ring which can completely undo whatever it is your were just trying to do.
The speakers are adequate and maybe a little on the loud side (a good thing) the Thinness allows latitude here as a trade off since louder speakers are by necessity larger.
I like that the edges of both top and bottom halves of the flip are rounded. This allows single handed operation since your finger/nail can easily find and slide into this gap and open the phone with minimal effort.
Audio quality is excellent on both ends and music playback is impressive considering its a phone. I clip it to the neck of my shirt and in quiet environments the 56kbps mp3's I use are quite impressive and filling. I was not expecting that. (more on this later)
Overall I give this area a 7-8 on a 1-10 scale.
Some things I would improve. Raise the Selector circle and center button measurable above the rest and "border" the 10 digits to distinguish them from the non digit keys. This will allow the user to retain orientation by feel alone. The kind of have this border but the * and # keys need to be separated by feel as well
On a good note they made the talk and end buttons large and properly places EASY to find and use by feel. the only real problem is the back button. Raising the Circular dial would largely solve this. Then again I do have rather large fingers so it might just be me.
-- UI - User Interface
This are needs a bit of improvement. Overall I am impressed with the UI. Nice balance of eye candy and functionality. it seems a little slow at times but I would not trade speed for lower battery life. its adequate and usable.
I do not like that I can not playback video full screen. It has a gorgeous 320x240 screen (truly has to be see gorgeous) In fact the A920 I have is technically superior but that screen on the a900 is irresistable to me at least (the 920 only has a 220x176 screen)
Web Browsing is actually usable on a screen at that resolution. Useless with the built in browser but Opera Mini works wonderfully.
They give me this gorgeous screen and then force me to watch videos at most using only 50% of the screen. Pitty. Using ORB on my home pc I have actually the occasional streamed video on this phone.
Now for the problems and they are big ones. There are 2 features I use a lot. Mute and Speaker phone. The major (and I mean major) bug this phone has come into play exactly when these features are desirable. When I am dealing with an automated interface I like to mute to keep the outgoing sound from interfering with the incoming and I like to have it on speaker.
Here is the problem. If and when I get to a person I need to disengage both the mute and the speaker.
Here is the bug. these features are accessed via the SOFT buttons (the upper right and left buttons that are dynamic) well if you press ANY number keys such as picking open 1 and then 2 and entering an account number these soft buttons DO NOTHING. ie you can not use turn off mute or disengage speaker (or engage either) until you press "back" to remove all the on screen key presses which will re-enable these soft keys. Thats a pretty darned massive huge bug. Minor in the overall picture but VERY annoying and it neuters a major function of the phone IE the speaker phone.
One other nuance of the phone that annoys me but "can" be useful and therefore should be set to a toggle setting. When you connect to a BT device and then make a call it ALWAYS uses the headset. On my prior phones if I initiated the call from the headset it used the headset but if I initiated the call from the KEYPAD it used the PHONE not the headset I could then transfer to the headset.
This has caused me problems where I goto make or recieve a call and I can not hear the other end because somewhere in the car a BT headset got turned on and the phone connected to it unknown to me. Not a huge deal but a bit annoying.
The phone also has issues with BT functionality. Too hard to explain here (ghost signals to the headset) but its something they need to fix.
-- Features
This phone has pretty much everything. Unlimited video (even if crappy unlike the 30sec limit on the a920)
1.3mp camera MP3 playback even animated gifs etc..
Its very feature rich alas some of them need to be polished and a critical missing piece cripples these features.
Camera - 1.3mp good takes forever to actually take the picture not so nice. The pictures are quite nice for a phone and the LED light is surprisingly effective.
BT - one of the only CDMA USA phones where BT profiles are not crippled intentionally by the carrier. Hopefully sprint will continue this trend.
MP3 - Like I said impressive and quite good sounding. You may have noticed that I mentioned that I used 56kbps mp3's - there is a reason for this. Its the lowest quality I could go without hearing major sound degradation (via the phones speakers I have never plugged in headphones)
Why bother? Its the one missing feature that cripples this phone and keeps it from being just about perfect. NO MEMORY CARD SLOT - ie you are limited to the 47mb of internal memory it comes with. Pics and video plenty. MP3's ENTIRELY too small.
Besides some bug fixing its literally the only thing this phone is missing.
On top of this carrier greed prevents you from using this space for "ringers" so you can not assign your mp3's as ringers. YES it can use mp3's as ringers (you can upload midi wav aac and mp3 and can use them as ringers) but NOT from the mass storage 47mb space. There is a dedicated closed off space for that and its only 11mb
You can assign screen savers from the 47mb but not ringers. Naughty sprint being greedy.
The Power vision works VERY well and the speeds internally and externally are pretty impressive.
Signal reception is pretty good even if not quite as good as sanyo phones.
In features I rate this phone a 5-6 though it has an excellent feature set the lack of a memory card cripples almost every single one of them.
-- General
One other thing that bothers me. With all current phones actually. Many times the screen it just too danged bright. at night while trying to do some web in the dark its near blindingly bright even on the lowest setting.
I found that putting it in power save mode not only fixes the battery issues but makes the screen dim enough to be perfect at night! One problem. you can only get this dim setting in power save mode and that mode completely disables the KEYPAD back light which is sourly needed at night. :-(
The Camera is hard to keep clean with its recessed lens so keep a q-tip handy if you plan to make heavy use of the camera. Thankfully the included USB cable allows you to download the images directly via mass storage with no external drivers or applications needed. This is nice. Do yourself a favor and ditch the cable for a charging version on ebay so your juicing up whenever you connect to the computer if you plan to do so often like I do.
-- Finish Up
Overall if Music on the phone is not a big deal to you (IE using it as a dedicated music player) then this phone is excellent.
Besides the above items this phone only has one major drawback. Battery life. It sucks. its that simple. Loud speakers massive high res screen Nice gui in a teeny slim phone with a teeny slim battery.
If you engage power save the run time is dramatically improved. Easily go 24+ hours with moderate usage. I have even gotten 2 day every now and then.
A heavy user and don't like power save? Buy a charger for every car computer and building you use often and plug it in often. They do now have an extended battery but it makes the phone considerably thicker and is expensive.
If you a light user like me (I never use all of my 500 minutes a month) and you jack into a computer often with a charging USB cable its no big deal at all.
If your a really heavy user you should probably look into another phone if plugging in often will be a problem.
Besides that its an amazing high quality phone with a blizzard or largely unencumbered (carrier restrictions) feature set which is a nice breath of fresh air and all in a svelte sleek metal casing.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300.00
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Epinions.com ID:
nerys71
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Member: Chris Taylor Jr.
Location: Edgely, PA
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I Love Rockets, Airplanes, and off course Gadgets :-)
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