I'm Flippin for Samsung
Written: Aug 28 '02
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Pros: good design, easy to use
Cons: no games
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended phone.
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| shanna's Full Review: Samsung SPH-N200 Silver |
I am able to write epinions on several different cell phones because of fairly bad luck in our home with them. Let me begin by saying it's definitely not the phones fault. It would be a people thing. Phones at our house tend to be bench tested in ways I know their designers never envisioned. phones in the toilet, going in the pool, thrown out car windows, sliding across tile floors like hockey pucks, etc, etc. It seems that some trajedy befalls each and every phone in my home within about 90 days. Thank GOD for insurance is all I can say.
My latest model is a Samsung SPH-N200. I no longer get attached to my phones. For reasons known only to Sprint PCS whenever I request a new phone via insurance, I never get the same model. I always seem to upgrade. This works for me. Maybe they know I'm writing about them here. Who knows.
The Samsung SPH-N200 is available in 2 colors for those of you who need your phone to have some designer qualities. Personally I could care less what color my phone is as long as it rings. What is more important to me design wise is how it fits in my hand and against my head. The Samsung is well designed and easy to use. This phone does have a unique feature that I've never had in a model before, an itty bitty joystick like thing. The itty bitty joystick allows you to navigate you menus very easily and when you land where you want to be, just push it and your selection is activated. I think Samsung calls this apparatus a "toggle stick" or something. I like joystick and it will be referred to here as such.
How The Phone Works I think we're all pretty familiar with the use of a phone by now.... 1) Either you dial a number, it rings and they answer or 2) Someone dials your number, it rings and you answer it.... There are several ways in which those things can be accomplished, which I will go over in the features area.
You will either have your phone activated for you at the Sprint PCS store or you can activate it at home by calling over the handset. I did the later and it took only about 3 minutes to have the phone up and running.
Out of the Box
The Samsung SPH-N200 comes with an AC adapter for use in the home, a users manual (I don't read them) and a little wrist strap. The N200 has an LCD window that shows you the date and time and a greeting line. The greeting line can be Sprint PCS which is what the phone says out of the box, but with a few button pushes you can have it display whatever you want.... Mine of course reads.... DaleJrFan. This would distinguish my phone from the two identical ones in the house, but of course they belong to a Earnhardt Fan and a Jarrett fan so should they be laid down in close proximity I can just look right at them and know whose it is. You should charge your phone first thing out of the box, preferably before calling Sprint PCS to activate it. This will lengthen your battery life (according to Sprint).
Creature Features
Voicemail - When you miss an incoming call, your voicemail will pick up. You know what voicemail is (I hope), it's the 90's alternative to an answering machine. Afterall we would look pretty silly carrying around this little tiny phone with a huge answering machine attached. So thankfully someone invented Voicemail. After you receive a message the phone will display an easily seen little envelope icon that tells you you have some sort of message. You can also change your personal settings so that your phone will beep an alert as well until you listen to or view your messages. Other icons that rest at the top of your screen are a signal strength indicator, a battery strength indicator, an analog indicator and a vibrate icon to tell you your phone is in vibrate mode.
Text Message - Folks can leave you a text message or page also when they reach your VM. When you receive a message, just press your joystick and you will see a message window. The window tells you which type of message you have voicemail, text/page, or a web alert. You will also see an erase option at that time. After you listen to or view your messages, the envelope icon should disappear.
I'm Flippin'
I like flip phones and the N200 is just such an animal. I prefer them since I carry my phone in my pockets a great deal and this protects the keypad. Of course it does have key lock like many other phones, but I like the flip action. Not only can you perfect the fine art of flipping your phone to look ultra cool, but you can configure it so that it answers when you flip or so that you still have to push a key in order to pick up your call. I like this Samsung because unlike many other flip phone models I do NOT have to open my phone to see who's calling or the date & time. I can see the window with the flip closed. When I'm done with my call I can either push end or do the ultra cool clip, snap, done thing. After all it's all about phone style right? Help me.
Button, Button, Who's Got The Button
There are the standard 1-9 buttons on the phone, accommodated by the # & * keys. There are also your typical talk and end keys. I like it that all the keys are very self explanatory, menu, clear, 1-9. You know what they do by looking at them. I once had a Motorola Startak that you had to use a shift key to access many functions. That was ridiculous. This phone is too easy to use.
Toggle Me
Conveniently located on the side of the phone is a toggle switch that allows you to toggle your volume.... :) You can press it up or down to adjust your ringer volume while the phone is not in use or use it to adjust your earpiece volume when it is in use.
Who's Calling Please
The phone has caller ID and a Phone Book. The N200 will hold up to 238 entries & up to 6 phone numbers for each entry. The phone book is easily accessed by using the joystick or just pressing menu and the 3 key. You don't have to use the joystick thingy if you don't like to. I like key-shortcuts and use the menu-3 option more. Combined with your caller ID you can set unique phone rings to calls.... when my husband calls from his cell phone, which is entered in my phone book, by phone rings with a menacing tone. I realize then, that is is a call I don't want to miss and can ID the call without even having to look. You can do the same thing.
Ringer Types
You have your standard 10 cell phone type rings and several catchy little tunes like Dixie Land, Fireworks, a few marches, Oh X-mas tree, etc. I think a few might even be Mozart or Beethoven for those of you into such fine culture.
Pencil Me In
The N200 has a calendar as most of it's competitors do. You can do a day view, set alerts, get a month view, jump to specific dates, create a ToDo list or set a countdown to some really exciting date.
Spiderman Doesn't Have A Web LIke This
Personally I hate accessing the web on a phone, but I suppose many of you out there must do it or they'd quit putting it on the phones. If your plan includes wireless web you just start your browser and you're off to your cyber world.
VoiceDial
The Samsung works with voice dial as well as another other phone I've experienced.... which is basically not at all. Unless of course you set it up in your soundproof room for use in your soundproof room. Which is where you will need to be in order to get voice dial to work correctly. Hypothetically you are supposed to be able to speak "call bob" and the phone will then dial you Bob's number. What usually happens is you end up screaming "call Bob" for 5 minutes, never get connected and either dial the number yourself or throw the phone out the window.
Do you Roam Far From Home?
If you're a wanderer you may find it necessary to change your roaming settings. This is easily done from the Roaming menu and you can set it for Sprint PCS, Analog or Automatic. I keep mine in Sprint PCS since I don't have a roaming option and I will know if I will be incurring roaming charges.
Security
The N200 has several security features as well like key lock, phone lock, special numbers, phone book erasing, etc. You will find some of these features very useful if you're paranoid or maybe just careful.
All in all this is a great phone and one I highly recommend. It has also been my lucky phone. This phone was left in a public bathroom at the Daytona Pepsi 400 in July. Some wonderful person turned it into security for me and I actually got my phone back from an even with some 150,000 people at it. I guess I'm glad I had my DaleJr phone and I'm glad a Gordon fan didn't find it! I had my key lock enabled so even if someone had attempted to use it they couldn't, but they could accept an incoming call, which is how I found it. Maybe the Samsung SPH-N200 will break my bad luck streak with phones, I'm hoping so, I like it!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 169
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Epinions.com ID:
shanna
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Member: Shanna
Location: Pensacola Beach
Reviews written: 231
Trusted by: 197 members
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