Samsung SCH-u740 Review

I have been in dire need for a new cell phone for some time now.  I have been using a Treo for a VERY long time.  I started with the Treo 270, then the 300 and finally a Treo 600.  All of them had significant hardware and software problems.  I can't count the times I had to send one back for speaker issues, mic issues, etc.  In fact they finally stopped letting me.  So I had to fix them myself.  Yes, I had to take apart my 600 a few times to properly insulate the phone from the battery interference.  No more expensive Treo phones for me.

At any rate I shopped around for a bit and came across the new Samsung SCH-u740.  The name is horrible, but the phone is very sexy.  I had a requirement of a full qwerty keyboard, which this one has.  The big bonus for me is that the phone is incredibly small (compared to my Treo).  The size is akin to a razor and the like.  The phone is able to have the full keyboard by allowing one to flip the top up, or flip the top to the right and make it horizontal.  Sort of like a sidekick. 

I have only had it for a handful of hours so these are my first impressions.  I have a few days to decide if it is up to snuff and I keep it, otherwise I will return it and move on to an LG or other option.

The phone has many nice features.  The camera is a big step up from the Treo 600, with a nice picture, and ok resolution (1.3 megapixels).  The brightness and other controls are intuitive and a breath of fresh air compared to the lack of anything for the Treo.  I don't do much with camera phones, or at least I hadn't in the past so I haven't played much more than to test it out.

Dialing is easy enough, select from contact list or from your favorites.  You can add 100+ to the favorites and just hold down the last number to dial.  So if you want to dial favorite item number 4 just hold down the 4.  If you want to dial favorite item 27 dial 2, then hold the 7.  It also has voice activation.  I tested calling my wife (Jen) and my friend Haidee.  Both were easy to dial by voice.  However it seems you must press the voice key first, which I find odd.  Voice dialing should mean no keys at all right?

One beef I had with the phone is no way I can see to sync my contact list.  I would think that is standard these days.  I had to manually enter people and I am not done.  Do me a favor and call me if you get this.  Odds are I haven't added you first and it is much easier to add someone from the received calls list than to enter it all by hand.  Also it should sync my calendar items with outlook, google or whatever.  I demand interoperability damn it!

You can download music, games, videos, and photos with vcast, which is verizons way of controlling the media for the phone.  The games I saw on the list included Frogger, The Sims, Sim City and Oblivion.  Yes Oblivion for the phone!  The prices are either monthly or unlimited.  I found one unlimited game for $11.95, others down to $4.99.  I haven't tried the music yet.  One would hope I could transfer mp3's from my computer to the phone, but that is still to be tried.  So far I haven't found a way to do it.

One odd thing about the games.  In the little reference guide I see a screen shot of Kingdom Hearts.  However I can't find the game in the list.  What is up with that?  I have wanted to try the game... ah well.

The voice quality is good so far.  I hear very well and everyone can hear me, even with substantial background noise (dance dance revolution and my wife jumping about).

Another possible function (if you pay) is the navigator program.  It is like GPS navigation for your phone.  I had the phone rep show it to me.  Basically it isn't animated but rather shows and tells you the steps.  Once you get close to the waypoint the voice tells you the next step and shows it to you on screen.  Not as fancy as my GPS, however it is just a phone after all.

The only color option I had was gold.  It shows the lame analog display on the front, but you can change that to show a custom photo with the time instead.  Speaking of that you can customize a lot of the UI.  It isn't free form, but there are enough options to make it conform to your basic tastes including the greeting, wallpaper (which can be a video) and the navigation to tools/applications.

One last complaint I have is the keyboard.  In landscape mode you have the full keyboard.  I was using this when entering in contacts.  Quick and simple for text.  But to enter the phone numbers my number pad is flipped on its side.  Took a bit to get used to having my numbers shifted around.

I also moved from Tmobile to Verizon.  My brother still uses tmobile and even though my phone number was transfered 4+ hours ago he still can't call me.  Gets my old tmobile voice mail instead.  Hopefully that gets resolved soon.

So if you have any questions, leave a comment and I will do my best to check it out and get back to you.