serafalling

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a looker but nothing else.

Dec 23, 2008

Rating: 5 out of 10 (Average)
Pros: looks slick, rotating wheel, pretty good camera, slim
Cons: horrible touch-sensitive keys, phone constantly hanging, long memory card load time, screen washes out in sunlight, screen is a grime magnet, bad UI, average battery life, fiddly web browser
Opinion:
this phone was incredibly stunning when i saw it. i've read several bad reviews about this phone but dismissed them (ie: phone's screen washes out in direct sunlight? well not like i'm outdoors that much) but i had no idea just how bad some of these flaws could get.

at first, despite the touch-sensitive keys being a complete PAIN (multiple presses to get things going etc), the phone felt incredibly sexy to use. it's really slim (as thick as my ipod touch) and feels heaven-sent in your hand. It's keypad was alright to message with, except the text input lagged quite a bit.

after awhile, the touch-sensitive keys become a severe irritation. the keypad lock function on this phone was horrible (i think samsung should put a little extra key on the side like some SE phones to lock the keypad). when the phone was shut, i needed to slide it open and shut it again to lock the keypad. (or wait for it to lock automatically and pray that those horrible touch keys do not touch anything in my handbag and accidentally dial someone, which has happened one time too many).
When in calls, if you decide to unlock the keypad to use another function, there is no way to lock it back manually, you have to wait for the auto-lock to kick in... which is plenty of time to have your face accidentally press the Hold key, and that gets very annoying.

though sometimes the camera produces washed-out photos, it is generally pretty good with great autofocus. however the phone is horrible at multi-tasking and jams quite a lot.

also, it takes about a minute to initialize your memory card after you've turned on your phone. (your phone will be turning off quite a bit thanks to the constant hanging). then you have to wait another minute for songs to load in your player.
i don't know if these load times are common to many other phones but i have never experienced this on my sony ericsson w710i.

the screen really does wash out under bright light, making it near impossible to read, and you will find yourself constantly polishing the screen (if you are as obsessive as i am, at least). The battery was neither good nor bad, but mediocre. and as with most samsung phones, the UI was pretty horrible. the web browser gave me a headache. and one minor gripe about the browser is the horrible text input system (it took me 5 tries to loacate the symbol imput. ugh)

one very good plus is that i have never had any problems with video calls or call reception.

all-in-all, it sure looks good, and if you're willing to put up with a dozen minor flaws (which will probably eventually pile onto you and leave you very frustrated), then get it.

it has tired me out i am soon getting the nokia n85 ;)