Samsung Uproar is a great phone
Written: Dec 12 '00 (Updated Dec 14 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Plays MP3's! Wireless web, full of features
Cons: Expensive, only Sprint, RealJukebox
|
|
|
| CreamChief's Full Review: Samsung SGH M100 Cell Phone |
MP3 player, wireless web, voice activated calling - this phone rocks. This is my primary phone, and I use it every day. I will give specific detail about why it rocks and some reasons why not.
Here is the outline of the review since it will be kind of long.
1. General specifications
2. MP3 Player
3. The software
4. Other features
5. Sprint
First of all, I am reviewing a phone that I actually own and use, not something I just read about or saw in the store. I am tired of those kinds of reviews. Okay, enough ranting. I will address the many pros and a few cons throughout.
1. General specifications and features
The Samsung Uproar, aka M100, is a dual band - analog and digital - phone. It comes with a standard lithium ion battery, charging stand, headset with remote control for the MP3 player, USB cable to download MP3's, and software.
Of course, you could just read all of that off the side of the box (like I did). What you want is more real-life information.
The battery charges very quickly. I got a full charge in about three hours with the new battery. I charge it at night while I sleep and have not yet had it run down. They claim 140 hours of stand-by and 3.3 of talk time, but I have not used the phone for quite that long without a charge.
The charging stand is nice in that it has a space to charge an extra battery. The phone does not quite fit in the stand easily, though. It sometimes takes a moment to get it to sit in properly.
The backlit display is bright and easy to see, but the keys are actually harder to read in the daylight with the backlight on. The keys are also pretty tiny. I know, these things are small and nit-picky, but for $400 you should know this stuff. The button to start the MP3 player is accessible from outside the flip-lid. While this is convenient, it has taken me sometime to remember that it is NOT the button that brings up the menu options. That button is the little one inside.
I suppose that all of the function buttons make sense, but there is a bit of a learning curve in remembering which button does what and when, particularly if you are accustomed to another phone like a Nokia.
Some of the physical pros: small and light, bright backlight, expanding antenna, flip-lid snaps shut nicely, good battery life and quick charging, vibrating ringer, blinking light for incoming calls, and easily accessed volume control.
Cons: only a few ring tones, backlight can make the keys hard to read in the light, and some confusing buttons.
Other more specific cons: The jacks to plug in the headphone/remote and the USB cable each have a little rubber plug to close them when not in use. The plug for the headphones is at least attached to the phone. The little rubber rectangle covering the USB port comes off completely. Just expect to lose it almost immediately.
The headphones are terrible, but that is my very personal opinion. I know some people who like those little things that you either hang in your ear or shove into your ear until you almost hit your eardrum. I have never figured out why so many devices come with that type of headset (besides being really cheap to manufacture, I suppose).
This is a big issue because if you would rather use another set of headphones, then you are pretty much stuck. You can use other headsets with 1/8" plugs (not those 2.25mm plugs that so many cell phones have), but then you will not have the remote control for the MP3 player. The remote is on the same headset cable with the microphone and earphones.
If you are just using the MP3 player, then you can use any regular stereo headphones or even a set of computer speakers. They just plug in where you would plug in the "hands-free" set.
2. MP3 Player
Okay, so the only real reason to get this phone: the MP3 player! It is great. It holds 64MB. I have tried MP3's from 192Kb down to 32Kb. I have not yet tried variable bit rate (VBR) MP3's, but that will be my next experiment.
Why do you care about 32Kb MP3's? If you record books on tape as MP3's at 32Kb, you can get decent sound and about four hours of talking books on this phone. Otherwise, you will get about an hour of good quality music in the 64MB. I am not going into any more detail of MP3 quality and bitrates compared to CD's, etc. - you can find that elsewhere.
You can view the play list, easily move forward or backward through songs, or view the timer. The display is better than many portable MP3 players.
So how do you get the MP3's onto the phone? The Uproar comes with a USB cable that connects easily between the phone and PC. You would think that there would be a nice simple Windows interface to add MP3's to the phone, but no . . . now to the software.
3. The software
Terrible, terrible, terrible, you must use RealJukebox to download songs into the phone. This is not the place for an epinion on RealJukebox, but in short . . . It is an ill-conceived, confusing, cumbersome interface. Combined with RealNetworks questionable marketing ethics the lameness of this software makes it a real tragedy to have it as the necessary interface to the Uproar. I had successfully avoided RealJukebox until now, scraping by with the minimal basic RealPlayer.
Okay, so you see that I do not like RealJukebox. Perhaps you like it in which case I am happy for you. Regardless, when you install the included software, RealJukebox will find the new SamsungUproar.dll (eventually), and you can access the phone as a device in RealJukebox.
As far as I can tell, there is no way to add Uproar support to RealJukebox without installing the software that comes with the phone. After exhaustive Web searches, I have concluded "don't lose that CD that came with your phone!" Unless . . .
"Any other options?" you ask. Sprint has this deal currently where you get a free year of online storage, 2GB, for MP3's. What happens at the end of the year? I guess you are hooked and decide to pay Sprint or abandon your MP3's. Anyway, when you store your MP3's online you can download them to the phone with the "Download Manager." This is not that spyware FTP download manager like I first thought. It seems to work without RealJukebox or the uproar dll. I have not yet tried it on a virgin computer to see if I can use it with nothing else installed. In otherwords, I am not quite sure if Download Manager requires RealJukebox installed so it can use some of those components. At least you can download the Download Manager from the SprintPCS Web site once you setup your online account.
Other software? No, no PIM software or anything included. You are on your own for that. I am sure that with more time and more people having this phone, we will see some interesting software development.
4. Other features
I love the "call Mom" feature where I can just speak a name into the phone and it dials. The voice call feature can be set to activate when you just open the flip-lid. Or, you can set it so that you need to press and hold the Talk button before it will recognize a voice command.
Wireless web: Yes, wireless web is really cool. Yes, there is not a whole lot out there. I have found a few really cools sites, though. www.wapdrive.com lets you set up your own WAP pages on their free WAP site hosting service. If you set up a Yahoo mail account to access other POP3 accounts, you can then get that mail from your phone.
If you want to create and host your own WAP site, it is pretty easy to configure a Web server to serve WML (wireless markup language) pages. Also at www.applepiesolutions.com you can convert .GIF's into wireless bitmaps (.WBMP).
You can also get wireless messaging with Sprint. This is set up on the Sprint web site. Be careful, though, because only the first 50 messages are free. Many of the message services send out two every day. You can get sports scores, weather reports, horoscopes, etc. beamed to you every day.
Other features include caller ID, a pretty good phonebook, detailed call logs, and speed dial.
5. Sprint
As of now, Sprint is the only service that uses this phone. That means that the Sprint digital network is really the only place to use it. The roaming charges are kind of stiff - both analog and digital roaming, but at least you have that option. Right now Sprint is offering some pretty irresistible deals with 1500 or 2000 minutes.
I am giving up the AT&T Onerate with which I NEVER had to worry about roaming or long distance. So, moving to Sprint has always been a big hesitation for me. This phone, however, in combination with the 2000 minute plan, turned me around.
The other big deal at the moment is that the first six months of wireless web are free. I have conflicting information, though, whether it uses up "anytime" minutes and/or "off-peak" minutes. I guess I will know for sure when I get my bill.
There are a whole bunch of services that you can sign up for on the Sprint web site. It seems that I ended up creating three sets of accounts and passwords to get to all the services. It is not quite that nice seemless web experience that we would all like. Also, their web site can be frightfully slow. It is very handy to be able to change you account online or to view minutes that you have used so far.
Summary
I love this phone. It is fun to show it off to friends and coworkers. They all want to fondle it and play with it. "What?! It plays MP3'S?!" Oh, yeah.
Overall, the pros outweigh the cons for me, but this phone is not for everyone.
At $400, though, it is a huge hit to the wallet. I rationalized that my monthly service will be less than I had been paying. Hmmm . . . Okay, I really just wanted a cool new toy!
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
CreamChief
|
|
Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 57
Trusted by: 13 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.