Great Bleeding-Edge Phone, so far
Written: Jan 06 '03 (Updated Jun 17 '03)
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Pros: Slick unit, great features and ease of use
Cons: Sprint PCS support people overwhelmed.
Leather case very poorly made.
The Bottom Line: Great for early adopters, but not for your Mom yet. Support, especially, not up to the challenge. Case fell apart after 3 months, replacement very difficult, no aftermarket case available.
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| uncstv's Full Review: Samsung SPH-i330 |
The powers-that-be at my office hooked me up with a new cell phone for the new year! I unwrapped a shiny new i330 last Monday and entered the world of PDA phones. (I should mention that I didn't personally pay for the phone - the $500 suggested retail is from Sprint's web site.)
**These are my impressions after one week of use. I will try to update this every couple of weeks until I have the phone completely figured out.**
This phone is gorgeous - sexy curves and a large, bright color screen catch plenty of attention when I whip it out to make a call, look up a contact or note. And people really get interested when I start surfing the Web with it.
The display, though small, handles most Web pages I've tried so far (scroll bars, if necessary, take you across and down the page). The browser doesn't handle frames or Java, and you have to scroll a l-o-n-g way to get through pages with a lot of text.
Phone performance is nice and clear, just as advertised by Sprint. I now have my home PC, my work PC, and the phone synchronized with 336 names and numbers, and of course I can dial 'em from the Address Book. The voice-dial holds 30 entries and the two I have so far ("Wife, Work" and "Wife, Home") work like a dream.
So what's not to like? Sprint's PCS support wore me down last week. I couldn't get their network to recognize my username and login for Web access. I made four support calls of 30-45 hold minutes and 5 technician minutes, which didn't solve the problem. Friday night I stayed on hold for 1 1/4 hours, then on the phone for 1 1/2 hours with one poor soul until we got the thing fixed. He finally had to hunt down a copy of the phone around his office, and we got it working 15 minutes after that. At this point I'll give Sprint the benefit of the doubt and chalk the slow responses up to way too many people buying PCS phones with cameras, etc. and needing help. It's the price I pay for being on the bleeding edge of PDA phones.
It comes with a slim battery, a fat longer-life battery, a nice leather case and a desktop HotSync cradle/charger. I'd like to buy another cradle for home but nobody has the accessories for sale yet. Still, the long-life battery lasted from Friday to Monday, probably in use 3-4 hours, and only went down by 1/3 according to the on-screen meter.
Final Thoughts: I use the "Mom" test sometimes on new technology. Could my Mom use this without keeping the support people (or me) on the phone helping her all day? So far, I'd have to say no. She'd return it to the store if she couldn't get phone help within 10 minutes.
Geek Hat Trick: Went online Saturday morning with the phone and (1)bought a ticket to (2)Lord of the Rings, then sat in the theater (3)playing games on the phone waiting for the show to start.
Update 1/25/03: Still loving the phone, having the Palm attached to my hip lets me keep my calendar close at hand. I can take notes and - this is handy - record voice memos to myself while driving! Last week I heard a radio commercial for something I wanted to find out more about, so I grabbed the phone and recorded the 800 number and Web address. I also have the Web browser set up with my local weather as the homepage (lots of sites now have content designed for handhelds) so I can pull up the radar no matter where I am. Yowza!
Update 3/26/03: This gadget officially saved my backside a couple of weeks ago - I was at a location in the field and had forgot to bring a critical file to update their PC. I connected to my office PC via PalmVNC and emailed the file to myself by remote control. Without my i330, the day trip would have been wasted.
Also, I was at a wedding reception during the Big 12 basketball finals, but I browsed to the PDA version of espn.com and kept up with the play-by-play action and score while I stood in the buffet line. Ya gotta like that!!
***Update 6/17/03***
Big Problem! The leather case has become the source of major headaches for me in the past couple of months.
The closure is poorly designed - it has a magnetic catch, and the metal disc on the strap is not attached all the way through the strap. It's only attached to the soft felt-like fabric inside the strap. So after a few months of use, it detaches from the strap, which means you can't close the case any more. Plus, the plastic holster on the back flap of the case is only attached by a 1/2 inch plastic flap and some glue. When that glue gives way, the holster falls out of the flap and the phone just flops around.
Further annoyance: the phone has been out for six months, and there is no way to buy a replacement case. Not from Sprint, not from Samsung. (There is a case for sale at Sprint stores, but its design is much worse - two straps tightly secure the phone and must be unsnapped to put the phone in its cradle, plus the solid cover must be unsnapped to answer the phone.) I had to spend an hour with Samsung tech support, and talk to a level 2 support technician, in order to get authorization to return the phone. Then I had to wait a few more days for yet another Samsung employee to issue me an RMA number. Then I had to mail the thing in, and wait another week for the replacement to show up.
The replacement is here, and now that I know what to look for I can already see the metal disc starting to detach from the closure strap.
The phone is still great, it's just a shame that something as simple as a leather case has turned the overall experience from a delight into a headache. I'd like to change my "Durability" rating to a 1, but that's not fair to the phone.
I'll update again when/if Samsung or Sprint make a sturdy, user-friendly case available.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500
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Epinions.com ID:
uncstv
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Reviews written: 3
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