my cool CDMA cellphone
Written: May 21 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Clarity: |
|
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
 |
|
|
Pros: many well-integrated features, voice dialing, phonebook, email etc
Cons: weak ringer volume, small keys
The Bottom Line: Sounds good, right size, many powerful features, well-designed menu system, tri-mode, internet/data capabilities, reasonable price (almost free with 3 year contract)
|
|
|
| tvman22's Full Review: Samsung SCH T300 Cell Phone |
This is my first cell phone. But I have been investing in cell hardware companies for a few years so I am familiar with some of the technology. I needed to get a cell since I am starting a real estate sales job so it is my first "power tool". I researched providers in my area (Chilliwack, BC, Canada), and checked cell phone reviews on the Web before deciding on the Samsung SCH-T300, a feature-packed CDMA digital/analog phone. Send email to barriew at shaw dot ca if you want to compare notes on this phone.
I would have preferred a Nokia GSM phone like the 3390 or 8390 but the GSM coverage here by Rogers AT&T and Microcell Fido is not fully developed yet. Telus CDMA/analog coverage is good. AT&T Rogers TDMA/analog network is also good, but TDMA is an older technology and will not provide access to data and the internet as well as GSM and CDMA will, and I wanted to have access to the latest tech toys, so I ruled out TDMA.
Another factor in favor of CDMA is that in my area it runs on 800 MHz which I believe has much further range than 1.9 GHz GSM (10 km vs 2 km). The population in my area is low and I doubt that the GSM providers can afford to build many GSM base stations and towers. So CDMA with Telus was my choice. 1.9 GHz CDMA works in the big Canadian cities like Vancouver and will eventually be available in the boonies.
There weren't any late-model Nokia CDMA phones offered, and Nokia does not yet have a good reputation for CDMA phones, although it dominates in GSM. The Samsung T300 phone is inexpensive, Cdn$200 or US$120 no-contract or with a 3 year contract, only Cdn$50 or US$30, so that was my selection, it is tri-mode so it works on 800/1900 MHz CDMA and 800 MHz analog.
I was cautious about buying a Samsung phone, but I have had a Samsung TV for about 4 years and it works fine, and the phone store guys said the T300 was equivalent to more expensive Motorolas and their customers like it. I have read that Korea produces very good CDMA phones (Kyocera bought the Qualcomm phone manifacturing division about 2 years ago).
The phone case is assembled tightly from quality plastic parts, and the "flip" hinge looks like it will last. The T300 seems more like a "city slicker" phone than one to be used in rugged and noisy environments but I know of a logger who has one and likes it.
So far the main potential problem area is the weak ringer volume, especially when a leather case is used. The ringer volume is OK in quiet surroundings. The vibrate mode is also weak and cannot be used with the ringer tone. The keys are almost flush with the surface and spaced too close together, but with care they can be used reliably, and there is a click and tone to confirm key presses.
The only reliability problem I have had so far is that once when I was browsing the T300's phone directory entries, it went totally dead and the screen went blank. Apparently it turned itself off, maybe because of a software bug it "crashed" like a PC. I was able to turn the phone back on and it worked fine, and the problem has not happened again.
The display is big, almost 1.25x1.25 inch (3x3 cm). The phone is controlled by selecting one of 12 icons with a nifty notebook PC style joystick button that takes you into menus for call management, phone directory, mail, scheduler, voice dial setup, games, etc. You cannot change the sizes of the fonts used, but Samsung has selected fonts and sizes that do the job well, although legibility is a minor problem on some text-packed email menu displays.
There is a voice recorder to place up to 4 minutes of voice notes or dictation in a number of user-named entries. There is a scheduler, calculator, and games, but I haven't yet tried these.
The voice quality is good on both ends of the call. Not quite as good as a wired phone but very close, people sound a little "bassy" on the phone's earpiece. You can hear some low-level hiss and sometimes there are minor digital noises, echoes and other people talking in the background, I presume this is a network problem since it happens with other people's Telus CDMA phones (the TDMA phones in my area do not have those artifacts and sound good). I have tried using the phone while driving and the sound on both ends is good quality. The volume control range on the phone is good, but the two volume buttons take some getting used to, especially in a leather case.
There is a full featured phone book which lets you set up speed dialing and up to 8 phone numbers per entry, for home, cell, pager, voice dialing, fax, etc. Only one of these 8 entries per person can be for voice activated dialing, which is a minor problem in the way the phone directory is designed. However you can also set up several separate phonebook entries for each person, and that is how to get more than one voice dial entry per person.
There a few ways to quickly dial a number that is in the phonebook, including speed dial where you press one or two number keys, and voice dial where you just say the name of the person in response to a prompt from a female voice in the phone. Also you can just open the flip, move the joystick up or down to browse the phonebook, and hit the "Send" key to dial the person shown. Hitting the "Send" key works in some menus that show a person's phone number, to quickly call that person.
Voice dialing works well, it looks like I will use this a lot, to make frequent calls to the head office and friends. You can have up to 20 voice dial numbers. It is easy to train the phone to recognize your voice (don't forget to use "train" to teach the phone "yes" and "no" if you have a T300).
Voice dialing is requested by holding down the # key for 2 seconds. Also the phone can be set to automatically ask for a name when you open the flip. Very convenient, just open the phone and say the name of the person you want to call. Any key press will halt the voice dialer if you want don't want to use it.
I tried the voice recognition dialing on similar friends names like "Tom", "Don", "Rob", "Ron", "Bob", and others, and the phone dialed them all correctly under most conditions, except at noisy parties. The phone tells you who it is going to dial by playing back the previously recorded name, and I was sometimes uncertain of the name that is played back. So for safety I decided to change the voice dial names to forms like "Thomas" and "Donald", and also add the last names.
I use the voice dialer to control call forwarding, I have voice dialers for "call forward house", "call forward office", and "call forward off".
You can do email or SMS text messages on this phone and it works well in the limited tests I did, email addresses can be placed in the dialing directory. Of course typing is quite slow on the phone, compared to a PC. I look forward to sending emails from a mountaintop soon. I have not yet tried the Web browser.
Voice mail, pages, SMS messages, and email are nicely integrated into the "Mail Kit" menu system. Pages are handled as SMS messages, eliminating the need for a separate pager. While I have received email on the phone, I have not yet been able to send any, I expect this is just a minor problem that I will resolve soon.
Generally you have to open the flip to use the phone, but there are ways around this. You can program the phone in the Setup/answer-mode menu to answer a call on any key press. The "menu" and "clr" button are always exposed, so you just press them to answer a call without opening the flip, which could be useful in a car. You have to make sure the other person hangs up to terminate the call, with this method. You can also make a call without opening the flip, by pressing the menu key for 2 seconds, and then use the joystick to select a phonebook entry to call.
The battery life is good, according to other cellphone users I talked to. I did a test and fully charged the phone at 7 pm Friday, to be ready for a free-call weekend. Then I made about 100 minutes of calls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, always staying in digital coverage areas. The phone was turned off on Friday and Saturday night for about 9 hours each night. The battery became fully discharged about 3 PM Sunday, after about 44 hours of useage. So it looks like the battery will last 1 or 2 full days per charge when the phone is used frequently. I have run the phone for almost 4 days with light useage. The manual says the maximum standby time is 5 days and up to 200 minutes talk time with the standard battery.
I have not done much testing of the phone's RF performance, but it looks like digital mode will work almost anywhere I go. I drove into the boonies and observed the phone switching to analog mode, but I did not make a call. I took the phone into a shopping mall where my friend's Nokia 6185 CDMA phone did not work reliably, and the T300 seemed OK, working in both analog and digital mode, although the signal level was low. The extendable antenna probably helps in these situations. One missing feature is that the phone does not tell you explicitly when there is insufficient signal level, I recently had problems using the phone in a "no-coverage" zone and I thought the voice dialer was malfunctioning, but there was just not enough signal, or maybe interference caused by a nearby non-Telus cellphone tower, and I did not notice the level was down to zero bars.
All in all this seems to be a very good phone, with the weak point being the ringer volume. The extensive list of power-user features has been generally well designed so that they are useful and not just clumsy toys. Hopefully I will be using this phone and its features a lot, and it will last me a few years.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 30
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
tvman22
|
|
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.