What a Great Phone!
Written: Nov 14 '02 (Updated Nov 18 '02)
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Pros: Color screen, size, decent battery power.
Cons: Keys almost indistinguishable by touch.
The Bottom Line: Fantastic cell phone that will surely please everyone from the gadget lovers to the globetrotting power cell phone users to the casual cell phone users.
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| mxy15's Full Review: Samsung SGH-S105 |
Samsung and T-Mobil have hit a homerun with the SGH-S105 mobile phone. As part of the new wave of color cell phones, the S105 distinguishes itself by having a huge color screen with decent battery life and solid build quality. And best of all, I got my S105 free from Amazon.com after $250 rebate from Amazon and $50 rebate from T-Mobile. (The rebates require that you be a new subscriber to T-Mobile and the service plan be more than $35 a month. Otherwise the phone is $400 by itself and no rebates.)
The Phone: The phone is longer then the average folded phones. And when it is open, it can feel a little top heavy. This phone is most similar to the Sprint A460 phone, also from Samsung, but it is a little bit narrower and longer. It has dual displays and the display on the outside is large and easy to see. The antenna is not extendable and the volume control is on the outside. Under the volume control is an infrared port which can be use to download or upload information.
Standard Equipment: In the box with the S105 are one travel charger with an international adapter, one regular battery, one extended battery, belt clip that can be turned, ear bud style headphone and user manual. The S105 is a world phone that uses a sim card. The sim card stores the phone information, like phone numbers and service providers, and it has to be installed before it can be used. In countries like China, there are prepaid sim cards which can be purchased and put into the phone. So if you unlock the phone, you can use the S105 overseas.
Features: There are a ton of features on the S105. You have a choice of having a fish tank in your phone or the constellations in the sky by choosing the wallpaper of your choice. Most of the standard wallpapers are pretty cool to look at with good colors. And after you choose the wallpaper, you can change the color of the fonts and even the service light of the phone to match. However, the keypad is always blue.
Think most cell phone’s ring tones are boring? Not the S105. It has polyphonic ring tones and it sounds like real music. And new ring tones can be downloaded to suit your personal taste if the 20 standard tones are insufficient. The ringer volume is very loud and can be heard even in noisy environments, but the vibration is kind of weak.
Have a little time to kill? Try the FunBox! Downloadable games with color that should keep most people entertained while waiting in lines. The standard games are pretty lousy but did I mention they are all in COLOR???
Display: The color screen on this phone is big. However, it is not active matrix so doesn’t show very well in direct sun light. But with the silver surface of the phone, if you do try to read the screen with direct sun light behind you, you’ll probably go blind anyway because it reflect light like a mirror. So as long as you hold the phone in a slight angle, seeing the screen shouldn’t be a major problem when the backlight is on. And being passive matrix is also good because the battery lasts a lot longer.
Phone Book: This phone has a great phone book, capable of storing 750 phone numbers or emails. 250 of which can go on the sim card and the other 500 in the phone’s memory. Each one of your contacts can have multiple numbers and an icon next to the phone number distinguishes the number as cell, home or work. And you can have multiple phone numbers with the same icon with one contact. Like two cell numbers or two office numbers.
Call Quality: Before I got the phone, I was told by some friends that Voice Stream, which is now T-Mobile, had bad reception in my area, Central Jersey to Princeton. However, I am having no problem what-so-ever with the S105’s call quality and its ability to make or receive calls. Even in my office, where the signal bar is only one, the call still goes through.
Complains
My biggest complain about this phone is its numeric keypad. The way the keys are designed, it is almost impossible to dial a number without looking at it because the keys all feel the same. The keys are sufficiently large that dialing is not a problem and it has a nice soft feel to it but it is hard to distinguish if you hit the wrong one.
The charge area on the bottom of the phone is covered by a small piece of plastic. When you charge the phone, this cover has to be removed before the charger can be plugged in. However, unlike the hands free plug on top, this small piece of plastic is not attached to the phone so you’ll have to find a place to keep it if you don’t want to lose it. This is annoying and I’ll probably lose it sooner or later. And this would leave a fairly large hole on the bottom of the phone to collect dust and other debris.
Names stored in the phonebook is limited to just 16 characters. It’s probably enough for most people but I think it can be longer.
Competitions
Before making my decision to purchase the S105, I've also check out two Sprint PCS phones that are similar to the S105 in terms of features. Sprint PCS A500, also from Samsung is probably the hottest phone out there right now. The active matrix screen is bright and the A500 is also smaller and lighter then the S105. However, the battery life is not as long as the S105 and it's much more expensive. $200 on Amazon.com after rebates and about the same in stores as well.
The other color PCS phone that was very good was the LG LX5350. This is also a nice phone. A little shorter and thinner then the S105. The color screen is also passive so it's like the S105 but the screen is smaller. The LG offers more features as well. It has voice dialing and voice memo. It even has a GPS positioning system. But the keypads and the build quality is worse then the S105 IMHO. Also, it was more expensive the the S105 after all the rebates.
That’s about it for now. I’ve yet to use T-Zone nor have I try to download pictures into the phone so these features are not covered here. However, as I get around to that, I will be sure to update my review.
**Revision**
1. In the original review, one of the complains I had about the S105 had to do with the outside display not lighting up in order to check time in the dark. Upon further investigation, I have found that I was wrong. Turns out that if you hold down the volume control for a few seconds, the backlight would come on for the outside display. Sorry for the earlier mistake.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mxy15
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Location: NJ
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Home Theater and HiFi Hobbyist. Electronics junky.
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