Quite pleased so far!
Written: Nov 13 '00 (Updated Nov 14 '00)
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Pros: Voice dialing works fairly well
Cons: Battery life not as claimed (though not bad)
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| Horseman15's Full Review: Samsung SCH 3500 CDMA / AMPS Cellular Phone |
After spending 2 years with a Nokia 6120 (and going from 150 mins or so a month to almost nothing, because the earpiece got hot after five minutes of use), I elected to jump ship to Sprint PCS. For the same money I more than doubled my minutes and got free long distance. The phone I chose was the Samsung 3500 -- a lot of guys in the office had them and seemed happy with them.
And I've been too, so far. No real problems to speak of. A fair amount of the problem reviews for this phone I've seen have to do with either the service or not knowing how to use the phone.
The phone does have a tendency to shift to analog (which means .34 cents a minute roaming rate) if the digital signal is weak. However, if you *read the instruction book*, there are simple and clear instructions on how to change the phone's settings to use Sprint PCS only. Have this as your default; change it if you're in a non-digital area. It's really not that difficult.
The battery does seem to be less talktime than stated. That said, most batteries have given me less talktime than they claim. The SCH-3500's battery stands up pretty well -- I can go two days without charging; by the end of the second day the battery is pretty well done. That's substantially better than the Nokia 6120 this phone replaced (which, if turned on at 9 AM and left on all day, would be pretty well discharged by 6 PM that night.) And it's vastly better than the analog Motorola flip phone I had in my first trip around the cell-phone, which wouldn't last more than a few hours before needing to be charged.
Voice dialing is a very nice, convenient touch. Keep in mind that voice-recognition software is not perfect and give it some help -- the phone may get confused between 'Mom' and 'Home' -- if you record these numbers as 'Mother' and 'Call Home', the phone will have a much easier time of it and you'll be happier. It's very handy when calling from the car when your car has a manual transmission.
The durability seems great so far. I have a leather belt case for mine and keep it in there. Not a scratch so far. The vibrating ring is definitely a good addition for when you're in a meeting or otherwise don't want it to ring.
One thing I would have liked to see on this phone is a 'no' button -- say someone calls you, you haul out the phone, look at the caller ID. Aaaah, it's that person who's always bugging you, you don't want to take the call. Problem is, if you open the flip, that's set to answer the call by default. (You can turn this off, of course, but it's inconvenient.) So you're kind of stuck with either sitting there with a ringing phone in your hand or taking the call. If there was a way to make the call roll to voicemail with the flip closed, that would be a nice way to handle it.
Call quality has been absolutely sterling. Much better than analog cellular or even the 800mHz digital I used before. No static on any of my calls.
One additional thing -- the phone does not indicate when it's being charged. While this isn't a big deal with a desktop charger, it is with a car charger -- you have no way of knowing if the battery is charging or not. This isn't a huge deal, but an indicator would be nice in the next model.
This is the phone for cell phone junkies -- people always on the horn to someone or another. If you want a phone to just cart around with you in your car and only call Triple-A in emergencies -- it's not the phone for you. Get a prepaid analog, it'll be cheaper. But if, like me, you constantly have a phone on you and use it all the time, this is the phone for you.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
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Epinions.com ID:
Horseman15
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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