I have been using this phone for almost 2 months now and I would say that it’s a 80:20 feeling when somebody asks me how is the phone and its performance.
First of all let me tell you that Samsung has not been able to propagate its models much, the only model that has been quite popular was the R220, after that there has not been a single phone which has really made its niche in the market like what Nokia did with the 3310 & the 6600, although Samsung has come out with really good phones.
Samsung had recently cut down the price of X700 to 9999/-, which if we consider the features it possesses is a good value for money. The pack comes with a handsfree set, a 64 Mb transflash card, USB cable and a Samsung PC studio CD to manage your files with the PC and the phone. Some of the features that it has are:
1.3 mega pixel camera with video recording.
Bluetooth
GPRS
MP3 player
Voice recording
FM Stereo Radio
In built memory of 32Mb and a Transflash card of 64 Mb
Java Games
All these features give the phone a good value for money
Let me give you a brief idea of the various features one by one that I have used.
Camera: The phone has a one-touch button The camera is a good quality camera which gives you good quality pictures. It has a zoom function and a brightness control but even if you zoom in and click a photo, the photo will come without the zoom. The camera lacks a flash or a nightmode thus making it almost useless if you are clicking a photo in the dark or low light.
Bluetooth: Bluetooth has been a feature which is used to transfer data among phones and is now preferred over the Infra-red transfer. The X-700 does not have an infra-red port but the blue tooth is effective enough to transfer data. Here again the drawback is that if you are transferring data thru Bluetooth or even thru the USB data cable, the phone cannot do any other task, i.e. play an mp3 song, or you cannot access the address book etc. so the phone cannot do a multitasking. One more thing that I found out while using the data cable and trying to transfer some file form the phone is that you can only access the phone memory thru the data cable and not the data on the memory card, however you can transfer the data on the memory card thru Bluetooth.
MP3 player & FM Radio: There is nothing extraordinary about these features. The sound quality is quite okay. Again the phone has some limitations with the audio player, it does not support .wav file for playback, only mp3 is supported that too with a bit rate of under 192kb/s. I had an mp3 recorded at 192kb/s, which it could not play, but it could play one at 132kb/s. The FM Radio if interrupted by an incoming call, after you hang up it will ask you if you want to continue listening the radio, which can be a disadvantage sometimes. The handsfree supplied is a bit bulky and not of good quality, mine got a loose wire within a month of using it, although the Samsung guys said that they will replace it free of charge as the phone comes with a one year warranty but they did not had the handsfree available with them at that time and I haven’t heard from them about its availability yet even after a month, so here again the service is not satisfactory.
Battery backup is also not that great, a normal usage gives me a backup of 2-3 days. One thing that is useful in saving the battery is the keypad light that you can set and put off during the daytime when you don’t want it. Another feature is that you can take pictures and print them directly thru a compatible printer or you can send an output wirelessly to a compatible device thru Bluetooth.
All in all I would say that keeping in view the fact that X-700 is available for just 9999/- which is quite cheap compared to other phones with similar features. I would say that if you are not too fussy and tech savvy that this phone is definitely a good buy. I will keep on updating this review as I find more things about the phone , please comments or queries are most welcome thru this site.
So till next time , Happy Calling.
Added on 15 July 2006 :
Guys, The advantage of this phone as the cheapest n this class is gone as Nokia 3230 one of its main contenders is available now for 9400/- and the MotoRazr V3i is now available for around 8.5k so I think Samsing guys will have to further decrease the price of this phone so If you are planning to buy this phone , then just wait for a month or too and you will get this at a cheaper price. As they say that Patience always Pays :-)