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Like most feature phones, the Juke comes with a Contacts database that can hold 500 contacts. You can store an email address, unique ringtone and caller ID along with group assignment in each entry. Other PIM (personal information management) tools include Calendar, Calculator, Alarm, Clock, World Clock and Notepad. Music, Gaming and VZ Navigator The Juke phone is positioned as a music phone, as all phones now seem to have to do more than just make phone calls. As a music phone, the Juke excels in playing not only the usual MP3 and WMA files that most Verizon music phones support, but also AAC and AAC+ files. If you have ripped your CDs once for iTunes already, you don’t have to rip them again in Windows Media Player just to play on the Juke. The Juke dedicates 2 gigs (1.87GB on our review unit) internal memory to store music, a good move since the Juke’s small body can’t house a storage card slot. If you carry more than 1.87 gigs of music, then this isn’t your music phone. But for most people, that’s plenty of tunes to keep you entertained. The good news is you can sync your music from PC to your phone, the bad news is you can’t buy music tracks from Verizon’s V CAST music catalog. Copying music tracks from a PC and a Mac is very easy as the phone shows up as a drive on your desktop when you connect it via USB and you can just drag and drop the music files to the Music folder. Music playback is slightly peculiar as you must open the phone to launch the music player but must close it to play tracks. Using the spin-wheel is quite easy. The music player supports playlist, sort by album, artist and genre, and offers several play modes (shuffle, repeat and more), skins, equalizers and more. The sound through the phone’s speaker is not very loud and is a bit tinny and thin, as you might expect from a small speaker. The sound quality through the included wired stereo headset is much better in comparison: volume is quite high and sound is fuller. But nothing sounds better than playing music through over-the-ear Bluetooth stereo headsets such as the Plantronics Pulsar 590. Tracks sounded excellent in our Bluetooth stereo headset tests: not only was the sound full with good stereo separation and plenty of volume, but you could hear instruments and voice very clearly. The AV controls via Bluetooth worked like a charm when using the Plantronics headset to control music playback on the phone. While you won’t have the pleasure of watching V CAST videos or downloading V CAST music on the Juke, you can buy and download games over the air. From Dinner Dash to Orcs and Elves, from NBA 08 to Castlevania, you can choose games from a rich library that includes all major genres and hot titles. You can either pay $3.99/month to subscribe to a game or $7.99 to buy it. Most of the games support the spinning jog wheel and number keypad controls; and since the screen is physically smaller though the resolution is relative high for the screen, the games look visually small but sharp. Performance on all games we tested (we tested quite a few) was very responsive. Other content you can also download includes ringers and wallpapers.
Given the Juke’s small size and reduced feature set we were surprised that it has a GPS onboard that works with Verizon’s VZ Navigator. If you haven’t used VZ Navigator, it’s a map and navigation application that provides turn-by-turn directions, maps and voice guidance. VZ Navigator was fast (despite having to download map data over 1xRTT) and the turn-by-turn driving directions were very accurate. The voice guidance was spot on as well. VZ Navigator costs $9.99/month, but it is a good value if you often drive in unfamiliar places. The location-based services also allow you to send invitation messages to other Verizon users with locations (like restaurants, clubs, etc.) along with directions. Camera Even though it wasn’t long ago that mobile phones came with VGA cameras, nowadays they seem archaic. As you’d expect, the VGA camera on the Juke isn’t anything spectacular. It’s not bad for taking some snapshots for MMS, but not great for publishing, printing or viewing on bigger screens. Outdoor shots have decent color balance, though some shots have a very noticeable blue cast. You can see a good amount of noise in both outdoor and indoor shots, though as expected indoor shots have noticeably higher noise levels. One feature that hints this is a club/bar/party phone is the night shot feature, which is quite effective for shots in dark environments. You can take photos in three quality settings and three resolutions (VGA, QVGA and picture ID), and have options to adjust white balance and color effects. There is no camcorder onboard which means you can’t record video clips.
Bluetooth The Juke has built-in Bluetooth v1.2 and supports Headset, Hands–free, A2DP, AVRCP, Serial Port & Object Push (for vCard) Profiles. The Juke worked well with most Bluetooth headsets we tested and paired with them all easily. For the mono Bluetooth headset tests, we used the BlueAnt Z9 and Cardo S-800 Bluetooth headsets. The BlueAnt Z9 had slightly muffled voice on both incoming and outgoing ends but it was clear enough to have a conversation. The volume wasn’t very high, but enough to hear and be heard with road noise in the background. The DSP worked pretty well too. We could still hear cars passing by, but the noise level was reduced drastically by the DSP. When working with the Cardo S-800, the Juke had better voice quality that was clearer and much louder compared to the BlueAnt. We still heard the Juke’s slight “hissing” white noise, but the DSP worked well in reducing road noise and wind noise. Voice dialing via Voice Command worked very well via the Bluetooth headsets. The range wasn’t that good with either mono headset-- we heard crackling and audio distortion beyond 7 feet.
The Juke has the A2DP Bluetooth profile. As mentioned, we tested the Plantronics Pulsar 590 as well as the Motorola S9 stereo headsets. The sound quality was very good through the Plantronics Pulsar 590 with great clarity, loud volume and excellent separation. The Motorola S9 stereo headset, prone to its own white noise problems, worked almost perfectly with the Juke. Music was full and loud with great separation. The AV remote controls worked well also in our tests where we could use the headsets to control the playback, track forward/rewind and change volume. The range also fared better than the mono headset: we could get at least 20 feet between the Juke and the stereo Bluetooth headsets. Battery Life The Juke by Samsung comes with a 750 mAh Lithium Ion battery that’s user replaceable. The battery is integrated with the battery door which sits flush with the back of the phone. If you need more juice than the standard battery can provide, you can buy the extended battery which is 1500 mAh for $49.99 from Verizon. The extended battery is thicker and will make the phone look thicker. The claimed talk time is 3.5 hours and claimed standby time is 250 hours. Our tests showed that the talk time was closer to 3 hours and the standby time was about a week. Conclusion The Juke is a stand-out phone that doesn’t have many competitors. If “tiny”, “stylish” and “weekend phone” are the endearing features you are searching for in a phone, then consider the Juke as it takes these characteristics to the extreme. Good call quality and a nice set of call management tools will take care of your basic needs for phone calls. Music playback likewise is good and the phone has enough space to store tracks for a weekend getaway. If you can live with no storage card slot, the meager VGA camera and lack of EV-DO, you get a super-stylish music phone with VZ Navigator support that can get you to the new nightclubs and restaurants. Price: $129.99 with a 2-year contract; $79.99 with a 2-year contract after $50 online discount. Web sites: www.samsung.com, www.verizonwireless.com
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