The Samsung SPH-A500 is the flagship phone for Sprint’s new PCS Vision service. The PCS Vision service is the first third-generation (3G) cellular network to launch in the US. The much-hyped 3G networks are supposed to offer a wealth of new functionality and services and the A500 is equipped with the necessary hardware to access these new features. Now, the A500 can be used with the standard Sprint PCS service, but buying an A500 without subscribing to PCS Vision would be like buying a Ferrari to do your grocery shopping. You need to subscribe to PCS Vision to take advantage of all the features of the A500.

The Phone - Specifications
Dimensions: 3.46” x 1.97” x 0.80”
Weight: 3.56 oz
Battery Life: ~2.5 hours talk time, 9 days stand-by time

The Phone – The Good
The A500 is an incredibly stylish phone. It is compact, sleek, and impressively thin. Samsung has deployed phones in Europe and Asia with the same form factor as the A500 for some time now. So, overseas, the sleek look of the A500 is fairly commonplace already. However, the US is a different story. It’s no surprise that the US is behind other parts of the world with respect to mobile phone technology. While the rest of the world standardized to one cellular protocol, the US has allowed multiple standards and multiple networks to proliferate. Additionally, the US is much larger than most European and Asian countries and providing nationwide coverage is a much more expensive and daunting task. These two factors have made it difficult for cell phone manufacturers to churn out products quickly. Some people argue that all this competition hurts in the short term but will help the US become a leader in the long run. I’m not fully convinced with this argument, but I guess time will tell…

Back to the phone – the most eye-catching features of the A500 are its large dual LCD displays. Clamshell style phones have recently been adding a second external LCD to allow the user to view Caller ID information without opening the phone. The A500 has the largest and best external LCD available today. When the phone is closed, the external LCD provides you with the time (in a HUGE and easy-to-read font) and date, and signal strength, battery life, ringer indicator and voice mail indicators. It is truly a technical marvel to behold. The only thing lacking is backlighting, which makes checking the time in dimly lit places rather difficult.

When you open the A500, however, you will be confronted with an even more spectacular sight. The internal display of the A500 is an enormous 128x160 pixel TFT color LCD. The screen is sharp and bright and is so large that you can actually set wallpapers for the display. All the menus are presented with large fonts and colorful graphics. Is it extraneous? Yes, but I like eye candy. Often, like on many PDAs, color displays appear dull and blurry. But the display on the A500 is extremely bright and crisp and easy-to-read. I have heard some people complain that the screen is difficult to see under bright sunlight. I personally haven’t found it to be any more difficult than looking at a standard cell phone display, so I have no such complaints.

But the A500 isn’t just about the displays. The phone also features 16-chord polyphonic sound that allows the phone to play some really fancy ringers. I personally don’t care much for fancy ring tones, but I know some people really enjoy having very unique ringers. For those of you, the A500 will definitely not disappoint. What I did like about the ring tone capabilities of the A500 is that the phone allows you to set different ringers for different situations. You can assign different ring tones to calls with Caller ID and without, and even customize ring tones for each entry in your address book. I guess it’s a little redundant, but I found it to be a nice feature.

Additionally, the A500 supports voice dialing, voice memos and a 500-entry address book. I don’t really use voice dialing a whole lot, but I do use 4-digit dialing. Basically, you type in either the first 4 or last 4 digits of a phone number and the A500 will try to match it to an existing entry in your address book. The phone also comes equipped with a planner that allows you to schedule events, create a task list, take memos, set an alarm, run a calculator, and set a countdown timer. Many of the features were once solely the domain of PDAs and other more complicated devices, but with technological improvements, they are now finding a home on mobile phones.

The Phone – The Bad
You’d think that having such a great display would open up the gaming possibilities. And to some extent, the A500 does. But for the most part, the much-ballyhooed gaming capabilities of the A500 are quite disappointing. The A500 comes preloaded with three games – CyRace (Demo), Space Invaders, and Monkey Ball. CyRace is a racing game this is entirely unplayable. Space Invaders is a simplified version of the arcade classic. And Monkey Ball is the mobile phone port of Sega’s popular title Super Monkey Balls. With the A500’s color display, these games look pretty good. However, this games play horribly. Let’s just face it, it’s difficult enough to punch the right numbers on the keypad, much less maneuver a little spaceship around on the screen.

This brings me to perhaps my biggest gripe with the A500 – the user interface. Like all of Sprint’s newest phones, the A500 comes with a 4-way directional pad with a button in the center. I figure that this is a nice way to navigate the menus – you highlight the desired item with the directional buttons and press the center button to select. Wrong. About the only time the center button does anything is in games. To navigate the menus, you’ll have to use two other buttons labeled “OK” and “MENU”. The only problem is that these labels are often incorrect. The function of each button changes with each menu, and often, there is no indication what each button will do. I’ve been using the A500 for a few weeks now and I still haven’t really gotten a good feel for menu navigation. It goes without saying that there have been a number of frustrating moments. All I can say is that the interface designers really dropped the ball here.

The other little quibble I have with the A500 is the battery life. Without a doubt, the battery life is shorter than my previous phone. I don’t log too many mobile minutes, so it’s not too big a deal for me. Plus, I’m in the habit of recharging every night. But if you’re an active mobile user, the A500 might not pack enough juice for you. The good news is that every A500 comes with an offer for a free extended capacity battery from Samsung. You don’t even have to pay shipping. But I guess you do have to deal with a fatter phone.

The Service
I must say that I have very mixed opinions about the PCS Vision service. What is good is that calls seem to connect a whole lot faster. Previously, it would take as long as 15-20 seconds for a call to start ringing. With the A500, my call is connected often before I put the phone to my ear.

The Internet features of the service are also much improved. It’s pretty quick and painless to access news headlines, weather reports, and sports scores. These aren’t lifestyle altering features, but just nice conveniences. What’s also a nice diversion is downloading addition games, wallpapers and ring tones to your phone. Note that these downloads are not free (some content is free for a limited promotional period). Though they count towards your quota of data usage, you will have to pay an addition fee to access this content. Ring tones cost $1 each. Wallpapers are roughly the same. Games range from $2 to as high as $5. This is basically how things work in Asia, so I wasn’t surprised. But not everyone realizes that they have to pay extra for this content and Sprint conveniently hides mentioning this little fact in the fine print. Before you make the jump to PCS Vision, make sure you know what you’re getting into.

My biggest disappointment with the PCS Vision service thus far has been reliability. Sprint is definitely experiencing growing pains as it launches this new service. There seems to be two ways to manage a PCS Vision account – via Sprint’s web site or directly through your phone. Either way, you can buy content, download it, and play with it. However, the problem is that none of these features actually work with any degree of reliability. The PCS Vision web site is periodically down and unavailable. And it seems that the ability to buy content through the phone is not implemented yet. While I can browse ring tones, games, and wallpapers via the web site, I have not been able to do so via my phone. Downloading stuff to the phone is also a mixed bag. The download functionality is not very robust and often results in corrupted files. When I signed up for the PCS Vision service, I was surprised when the operator told me that there would be no overages for the first few months. Now I understand why. Really, the main issue is that the PCS Vision service just isn’t ready for prime time. When it works, it’s pretty cool, but only when it works…

Conclusions
The Samsung SPH-A500 is a great phone. It is easily the best-looking phone available today and packs quite a bit of functionality into that sleek exterior. While there are some issues, I feel that they are relatively minor.

The PCS Vision service is a different story entirely. At best, the service can be described as unreliable. At worst, it’s probably better left unsaid. Of course, the quality of service will definitely improve over time. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 270