After my motoROKR E6 died after almost 2 years coincinding with my job, so was desperatly seeking a new phone. Motorola seems down although the ROKRe6 was avaialable in 5000, in stock clearence. Still had to buy something, with having enough of touch screen thought of buying something simpler, nokia is a no no as always, Cookie apart LG had nothing to offer in my budget of 7-8k, while sony ericsson was overpriced for similar specs when compared with samsung.
still from the ROKR I actually went a whole category down to this but hey I am not in college anymore and priorities are changing, I’ve more things to worry about in life than to crib about what features my phone doesnt have.
I had the phone replaced by samsung guys on the 6th day cuz it had a faulty software(it restarted everytime music player was started) and the new one is what has been with me.
Looks of course play a main role so the slim and sober samsung caught my eye. The phone is slim, not slimmest and small, almost the size of entry level phones and can slip inside the smallest pocket of my jeans, a good thing cuz mobiles aint allowed in my office and I still slip it in. An eyecatching phone became mine for 7100+ 800(extended warrenty and insaurence by hotspot)
the 3.0 megapixel camera was another reason 4 buying this.
so here is my review
Apart from the slim factor the phone has a a very clean yet durable look, it doesnt feel flimsy be it the fitting of rear panel or the buttons. The rear panel easily opens out easily by the press of a button which is a good thing cuz I have seen phones with their rear panel loosening out after sometime.
The metal finish doesnt feel exactly metal like the nokia6300 when touched and is highly scratch prone, lamination mandatory even then the phone feels durable. I bought this phone for its looks but still to my shock and horror I saw so many chinese copies of it, is that a good thing.!
Battery is very small although the back up is astounding almost 2 days, though since I talk too much I drain it in 24 hours. It can be recharged in 3 hours flat after complete discharge and the last bar does last for almost a day although when the phone does shows a battery low warning it goes into some sort of "POWER SAVING" mode, the keypad light turns off and neither the music nor the camera can be used.
the phone has a very simple and typical samsung style interface and menu, u bet its the same from phone costing 1600 al the way to 36000, but its very simple, after using the MOTO ROKR the samsung soul was actually going a level down from the PDA type interface of the ROKR it actually took me some time to get used-to of the simplicity.
The phone has radio, and music player and the sound clarity and radio reception is excellent.
Music player sorts songs alphabetically and navigation up and down the playlist is thankfully very quick and it sorts all genres, artist names, playlists and all.
Sound equalizer has preloaded presets but no manual equalizer still the earphone provided with the phone are excellent and I found them equivalent to sony ericsson(i wonder whats the fuss and extra price is about) be it clarity or loudness which is more so cuz this is not a music edition phone.
The headphone comes with a cord that has a provision for a 3.5mm jack.
But one annoying aspect of the phone is that if u make any changes to the files of your memory, even renaming, the music library updates it even happens once u restrat the phone and it cant be turned off, which means even your ringtones will also be pushed in alongside the songs(unlike the ROKR where a folder could be specified) though you can create playlists but still its the only reason why i bought an MP3 player last month. Thanks samsung for such excelent earphones cuz they come in handy with my MP3 player.
The Screen clarity is amazing but still the small size doesnt do justice, especially after using the big faced moto, still web browser has a pointer and if u make the page size large you can easily read the page even in a moving bus. Data speed are exceptional neither good nor bad, it has 2.5G, still sometime before 3G becomes affordable by the network providers. What I do miss is the high quality glass of the earlier samsung models that gave the phone an elegant apeal, though adding weight, still this phone is not exactly a feather so you feel it in ur pocket.
signal reception and sound quality in the earpiece is excellent, so is to the receiver on the other side, the single speaker on the back though isnt exactly as loud as my ROKR but is still audible in noisy environment of METRO, vibrator is strong enough to work as an alarm to wake you up just by its noise.
the phone can be connected to the PC like a pen drive and has options of going via pc suite and as modem as well but no webcam option, nahii.!
White backlight on a tough but responsive keypad looks elegent, combined with the metal theme on the screen, the keypad though hard to press is more responsive than the software.
the camera clarity is amazing be it still pics or video capture but using the features is worse than the liars paradox, the screen turns blank and pressing buttons shows only icons, u do have an option that shows all the shortcuts but seriously does that all had to be so biblical considering everything else on this phone is so simple, I still havent figured out to click pics properly i.e adjusting to lighting and turning on and off the flash, still I saw some loads of features and the manuel privided with the phone is useless.
This is where the simplicity of the soul annoys, the phone is not slow in detecting the files but still all the fancy functions of slide show, picture edit and setting ringtones are all available to the files saved in the phones memorey which is around 50 MB, I am using a 2GB card.
the phone book memory is 1000+SIM and 500 sms+SIM, but no hindi font supported and sms memory should have been shared sms management though is good, typing requires effort the responsiveness covers up.
and SAAM DAAM DUND BHED, u cant change the sms tone from the usual 5 default ting tongs. call in the firing squad!
not yet
cuz in office it remains on silent and by the time I reach home I am too tired to fiddle with it, and meanwhile for my sms, calls, and hiding in pocket it gets the job done with no er. rattle