Ok, I normally don't go this far when I do/don't like something. But there are some very frustrating things about this phone that I think a lot of people are failing to mention. Maybe the people that have given reviews thus far haven't had the phone for long, but I find it very hard to believe the fact that no one talks about technicalities of the phone. Also, I don't like the whole "--/5" stars thing, so I'm doing my own scoring system, and breaking it down--how a review should be.
PRICE--6/10
Ok, everyone knows that phones are cheap when you purchase a two year contract. But what about users who already have T-mobile and want a new phone? For you, the phone will probably cost about $368.00 plus tax. No, not $400, but T-mobile might tell you how you get a partial discount. What that might NOT tell you, however, is that the partial discount means you are agreeing to renew your contract for another two years. I don't think $368 plus tax is too bad of a deal, I'm willing to pay that. However, when two companis (T-mobile and Samsung) both have steep claims, I expect those claims to be met with likewise results. See more about what I mean as I review the rest of the phone.
LOOK AND FEEL--9/10
This is one of the greatest selling points of the phone. I really like the phone as soon as I picked it up, simply for it's look and feel. It's small, sleek, smooth, but has a very nice weigh that makes it seems like you're actually holding something that will last a while. It has a brushed metal backing that looks really nice, and it's a great fit in any pocket. I've been a Sidekick owner since the Sidekick 2, and the biggest reason I purchased a new phone was to have something smaller. I work in business as well, and a big chunky Sidekick doesn't look professional.
INTERFACE/NAVIGATION--6/10
This aspect of the phone is kind of on a fence. Overall, the interface is really cool, and super fun. However, when you NEED to send a text, when you REALLY need to access a web page, the phone can be extremely irritating. For a female with small fingers, or anyone with longer nails, perhaps this may not be an issue for you.
1) Despite the fact that you can enter text with either a vertical numeric pad (usually T9) OR a horizontal "full" touch/QWERTY key pad is a really good idea. Naturally, I choose the QWERTY over the numeric pad almost every time. But, there are some really, really annoying design flaws on the pad. Mostly, because the QWERTY is a touch, it's difficult to design it to be able to make shift+ options available. So, when you need to enter additional text, such as numbers, and different punctuations, you actually have to press a button in the corner of the phone, which selects an entirely different keypad of multiple characters; including, numbers 0-9, ",',<,> etc... This can be really frustrating when you just want to enter something like the number "1"
2) The space bar is not centered on the QWERTY keypad. When trying to hit the space bar with your right thumb, you will hit the "?" character if you're not careful, often resulting in sentences?like?this.
3) When entering a password into a website block, you can only use the numeric keypad. This is REALLY frustrating to me, because this forces you to turn off the CAPS button, AND turn off the T9 if you want to use freestyle input. Most of my passwords do not begin with a capital letter, and none them can I use T9 on. If I could just use the QWERTY like with everything else, I would be happy.
Other than these few issues, navigation isn't too bad. The touch screen is actually pretty decent and responsive. However, those crucial flaws, when entering text, make me feel that the phone deserves no more than 6 out of 10.
CALL QUALITY--10/10
This part is simple. All calls made were heard very well on both ends, and the speaker phone is very loud and works very well. I don't think it's fair to judge the phone based on network problems such as dropped calls, but I've had only one dropped call with the phone, which is pretty normal.
CAMERA/MEDIA--10/10
A pleasant surpise on the phone. Picture quality is very good, at least for a camera phone. Also, the phone features some really cool shooting and filming modes. My favorite, the panoramic, automatically shows you where to point the camera, and stiches 6 photos together to make a panoramic photo. Forwarding the phone through emails also worked very well.
Music and Videos--both internet and taken through your phone--are heard very well. No complaints here.
WEB BROWSING--2/10
This is single handedly the most frustrating and disappointing aspect of the phone.
Bottom line, the phone uses a 3G network, costs $400 retail, and the rate plan from T-mobile is $25 or $35 a month. For all that, I expected lightning fast internet, and FULL HTML BROWSING CAPABILITY, just like both T-mobile and Samsung claims the phone to have. Well, after using the phone for only 30 minutes, I noticed that something strange was going on with the browser. If I never had a phone that had to use mobile browsing (aka WAP) I wouldn't have recognized it so quickly. The phone kept automatically reverting my URL requests to mobile versions of almost every website I went to. If the browser didn't switch me to a WAP url, then it chopped the page up into a single column.
At first, I was calm, and thought that surely Samsung had already, or was going to come out with a firware update. My sidekick THREE could view real pages, OR mobile pages, whichever I wanted. Even though they're only on a 2G speed phone, c'mon!
Now, that's not the worst part. I was so certain that it be fixed easily. The phone had no settings to change this. So the first thing I do is call t-mobile and tell them the problem. It took longer to explain to them my complaint than it did for them to tell me their answer. Basicially, there's nothing they could do.
Over the next few days, I contacted Samsungs mobile support. Let me preface this by saying they are awful, awful, AWFUL. They were rude, impersonable, and didn't show the least bit of concern about my needs. Through four phone calls, I got the same bit of useless information each time. Apparently, Samsung has no current software updates, and do not plan on making any in the future. Yes you heard that right, and yes that came directly from Samsung Supervisors mouthes.
This really makes me mad. The phone is everything I want except for the mobile browser. I was willing to overlook all the little stuff because I like it so much. However, I can't afford the unlimited data rate, and recieve ancient services. Needless to say, if it weren't for this, I wouldn't have returned the phone.
BATTERY LIFE--3/10
The battery will not last more than 8 hours if you plan on playing games, or using the internet. I wake up at 6am every day, after charging for almost 12 hours, the battery will not last until I get off work, which is 6pm. Well, actually, the battery retains enough enery to actually make the phone work, but from about 3 till when I got home and plugged the phone in, the phone vibrates for a total of 10 seconds, about every 3 minutes. This is extremely annoying, can not be turned off, and wastes even more battery! Very bad design.
In total, this comes out to about 6.6 out of 10. Pair that with how much I dug into the phone, and I don't think that's a good score.
I hope this review is helpful.
PRICE--6/10
Ok, everyone knows that phones are cheap when you purchase a two year contract. But what about users who already have T-mobile and want a new phone? For you, the phone will probably cost about $368.00 plus tax. No, not $400, but T-mobile might tell you how you get a partial discount. What that might NOT tell you, however, is that the partial discount means you are agreeing to renew your contract for another two years. I don't think $368 plus tax is too bad of a deal, I'm willing to pay that. However, when two companis (T-mobile and Samsung) both have steep claims, I expect those claims to be met with likewise results. See more about what I mean as I review the rest of the phone.
LOOK AND FEEL--9/10
This is one of the greatest selling points of the phone. I really like the phone as soon as I picked it up, simply for it's look and feel. It's small, sleek, smooth, but has a very nice weigh that makes it seems like you're actually holding something that will last a while. It has a brushed metal backing that looks really nice, and it's a great fit in any pocket. I've been a Sidekick owner since the Sidekick 2, and the biggest reason I purchased a new phone was to have something smaller. I work in business as well, and a big chunky Sidekick doesn't look professional.
INTERFACE/NAVIGATION--6/10
This aspect of the phone is kind of on a fence. Overall, the interface is really cool, and super fun. However, when you NEED to send a text, when you REALLY need to access a web page, the phone can be extremely irritating. For a female with small fingers, or anyone with longer nails, perhaps this may not be an issue for you.
1) Despite the fact that you can enter text with either a vertical numeric pad (usually T9) OR a horizontal "full" touch/QWERTY key pad is a really good idea. Naturally, I choose the QWERTY over the numeric pad almost every time. But, there are some really, really annoying design flaws on the pad. Mostly, because the QWERTY is a touch, it's difficult to design it to be able to make shift+ options available. So, when you need to enter additional text, such as numbers, and different punctuations, you actually have to press a button in the corner of the phone, which selects an entirely different keypad of multiple characters; including, numbers 0-9, ",',<,> etc... This can be really frustrating when you just want to enter something like the number "1"
2) The space bar is not centered on the QWERTY keypad. When trying to hit the space bar with your right thumb, you will hit the "?" character if you're not careful, often resulting in sentences?like?this.
3) When entering a password into a website block, you can only use the numeric keypad. This is REALLY frustrating to me, because this forces you to turn off the CAPS button, AND turn off the T9 if you want to use freestyle input. Most of my passwords do not begin with a capital letter, and none them can I use T9 on. If I could just use the QWERTY like with everything else, I would be happy.
Other than these few issues, navigation isn't too bad. The touch screen is actually pretty decent and responsive. However, those crucial flaws, when entering text, make me feel that the phone deserves no more than 6 out of 10.
CALL QUALITY--10/10
This part is simple. All calls made were heard very well on both ends, and the speaker phone is very loud and works very well. I don't think it's fair to judge the phone based on network problems such as dropped calls, but I've had only one dropped call with the phone, which is pretty normal.
CAMERA/MEDIA--10/10
A pleasant surpise on the phone. Picture quality is very good, at least for a camera phone. Also, the phone features some really cool shooting and filming modes. My favorite, the panoramic, automatically shows you where to point the camera, and stiches 6 photos together to make a panoramic photo. Forwarding the phone through emails also worked very well.
Music and Videos--both internet and taken through your phone--are heard very well. No complaints here.
WEB BROWSING--2/10
This is single handedly the most frustrating and disappointing aspect of the phone.
Bottom line, the phone uses a 3G network, costs $400 retail, and the rate plan from T-mobile is $25 or $35 a month. For all that, I expected lightning fast internet, and FULL HTML BROWSING CAPABILITY, just like both T-mobile and Samsung claims the phone to have. Well, after using the phone for only 30 minutes, I noticed that something strange was going on with the browser. If I never had a phone that had to use mobile browsing (aka WAP) I wouldn't have recognized it so quickly. The phone kept automatically reverting my URL requests to mobile versions of almost every website I went to. If the browser didn't switch me to a WAP url, then it chopped the page up into a single column.
At first, I was calm, and thought that surely Samsung had already, or was going to come out with a firware update. My sidekick THREE could view real pages, OR mobile pages, whichever I wanted. Even though they're only on a 2G speed phone, c'mon!
Now, that's not the worst part. I was so certain that it be fixed easily. The phone had no settings to change this. So the first thing I do is call t-mobile and tell them the problem. It took longer to explain to them my complaint than it did for them to tell me their answer. Basicially, there's nothing they could do.
Over the next few days, I contacted Samsungs mobile support. Let me preface this by saying they are awful, awful, AWFUL. They were rude, impersonable, and didn't show the least bit of concern about my needs. Through four phone calls, I got the same bit of useless information each time. Apparently, Samsung has no current software updates, and do not plan on making any in the future. Yes you heard that right, and yes that came directly from Samsung Supervisors mouthes.
This really makes me mad. The phone is everything I want except for the mobile browser. I was willing to overlook all the little stuff because I like it so much. However, I can't afford the unlimited data rate, and recieve ancient services. Needless to say, if it weren't for this, I wouldn't have returned the phone.
BATTERY LIFE--3/10
The battery will not last more than 8 hours if you plan on playing games, or using the internet. I wake up at 6am every day, after charging for almost 12 hours, the battery will not last until I get off work, which is 6pm. Well, actually, the battery retains enough enery to actually make the phone work, but from about 3 till when I got home and plugged the phone in, the phone vibrates for a total of 10 seconds, about every 3 minutes. This is extremely annoying, can not be turned off, and wastes even more battery! Very bad design.
In total, this comes out to about 6.6 out of 10. Pair that with how much I dug into the phone, and I don't think that's a good score.
I hope this review is helpful.
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