 |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
The Samsung u620 support most common phone features including 3-way conference call, call waiting, call mute/unmute, speakerphone and speed dialing. The Samsung u620 offers an uncommonly high number of speed dials and you can assign 999 speed dials to the phone. When in Contacts, you can select a number and press the Option button to assign speed dial slot. The Samsung also offer multi-tasking when in a call. You can take notes, record calls, send SMS messages and more while talking on the phone. Like many recent feature phones, Verizon bundles VoiceSignal’s excellent VSuite software that allows you to use voice command and voice dialing on the Samsung. You don’t need to pre-record voice tags for voice dialing and you can check phone status, call up email or phone number for sending messages and more using the voice command.
For data, the Samsung u620 supports Verizon’s EVDO network. The WAP browser has good speed when accessing WAP sites including Verizon’s portals. The browser can also display non-WAP sites that have full HTML formats and content. It will display all content on a full HTML page in a single column and images and links work well. Unlike the superb mobile web browser on Nokia S60 devices such as the Nokia E62, the WAP browser on the Samsung doesn’t work with most Javascript and dHTML. Display and Mobile TV The Samsung u620 has a 2” TFT LCD that’s capable of displaying 262K colors. Like the LG VX9400 (the other mobile TV phone in Verizon’s current line up), the Samsung u620 display is 240 x 320 QVGA resolution. The quality of the display is very good, bright, sharp and color saturated. Though it doesn’t have the “glossy” look like the LG’s screen and TV characters have better flesh tones on the LG. But images look sharp and colorful on the Samsung, and games look very color saturated. You can change the screen brightness and contrast using the Settings & Tools menu. Watching digital mobile TV is a joy on the Samsung. You can launch the mobile TV program grid by pressing the menu button on lower right side of the u620. TV shows look amazingly sharp and don’t have the blockiness and frame drops you see in V CAST videos. When in good digital mobile TV coverage areas, the picture is so sharp that you can clearly see the actor’s hair strands and even eye lashes. Picture quality will degrade in marginal coverage areas such as in large buildings, and you will see blockiness in the pictures and frame drops. Like on the LG VX9400, the TV antenna on the Samsung u620 is crucial to the picture quality. You won’t see much if you don’t extend the antenna and you will see less performance if you block or fiddle with the antenna. Multimedia and Gaming The Samsung u620 comes with Verizon’s basic media player that supports MP3 and WMA format songs. You can download music tracks from Verizon’s music store by clicking on Get It Now option on your phone. Most tracks on Verizon’s music store cost $1.99 per song. The download speed for songs isn’t the fastest we’ve seen on V CAST. You can also play your own MP3s by syncing them to the phone via desktop PC (using Windows Media Player) or by putting the tunes on microSD card in the “my_music” folder. The package doesn’t include a USB cable to sync with PC, you will need to buy it separately. Before copying songs to the card, use the phone to format the card so it creates the proper directories, including the “my_music” folder. The audio quality is excellent through either the built-in stereo speakers on the Samsung, through Samsung’s own wired stereo headset (not included) or via Bluetooth stereo headset. The sound is clear and full with great bass. If you’re into playing MP3s on your phone, the Samsung u620 will not disappoint in terms of sound quality.
The performance for playing video clips on V CAST is decent when the EVDO signal is strong, and when the signal is weak (1-2 bars on the signal meter) V CAST videos sometimes have trouble streaming. As result you will see interruptions in playback when the videos are buffering or it just might stop playing altogether. We’ve been long time fans of Verizon’s V CAST video service, but comparing the video quality and speed to their digital mobile TV service, V CAST video technology looks a bit outdated.
Bluetooth The Samsung u620 has Bluetooth v1.2 and supports Headset Profile, Hands-Free Profile, A2DP, Dial-Up Network (DUN) Profile, Object Push Profile (for vCard and vCal) and Serial Port Profile. We tested the phone with several Bluetooth headsets including the Cardo Scala-700, Gennum nX6000 and the Plantronics Pulsar 590A stereo headsets over A2DP. The Samsung u620 paired with all headsets with ease. The voice quality is middle of the road for both incoming and outgoing voice. The incoming voice has noticeable digital processing effects which reduce the clarity. But you should have no problem understanding your callers. The outgoing voice lacks DSP power in reducing noise. The Samsung’s audio has some trouble canceling ambient noise and this issue carries through to Bluetooth headsets. Using both the Scala-700 and the Gennum nX6000 when making calls, our call recipients complaint about background noise that interfered with voice. However in quiet environments this isn’t an issue. Working with the Plantronics Pulsar 590A stereo Bluetooth headset, the Samsung plays music tracks in stereo. The music quality via the Pulsar is excellent. When a call comes in the music player will pause the music playback and resume after you finish a call. You can also use the controls on the Pulsar to stop/play the tracks, take/end calls and change the volume. The range between the phone and the Bluetooth headsets is also middle of the road: getting about 10-15 feet on all headsets. Voice dialing and voice command via Bluetooth headset work like a charm. Battery Life The Samsung u620 comes with a standard Lithium-Ion battery that’s user replaceable. The included 3.7v rechargeable battery is 1000 mAh in capacity (model: AB553446GZ) and that’s a respectable amount of juice for a phone that has mobile TV in addition to a full set of features that are comparable to other high-end V CAST feature phones. The claimed talk time is 3.5 hours and standby time is 250 hours (both estimates exclude any digital mobile TV time). Like many V CAST phones, the Samsung u620 consumes power the fastest by connecting to Verizon’s V CAST services via EDVO. Playing several video clips and reading a few news items for 45 minutes will cost you ½ of a full charge. In comparison, the same amount of battery life will give you 45 minutes of mobile TV, plus taking 15 photos with the built-in camera and listening to music via stereo wired headset for 15 minutes. If you access V CAST multimedia content and watch TV frequently throughout the day on top of talking on the phone, expect to charge the phone daily. That said, TV is less of a power hog that we’d have guessed, and uses less than EVDO and V Cast video. Should you need extra juice, consider the extended battery that’s 1550 mAh in capacity and boosts talk time to 5.4 hours and standby time to 350 hours. The extended battery is not included with the phone, and you can purchase it separately. Software The Samsung u620 has a Flash user interface and the same menu interface found on most recent V CAST phones. The Samsung comes with PIM applications including Contacts, Calendar, Notepad, File Viewer, alarm clock, World Time, stopwatch and calculator. The contacts database can store up to 500 entries and each entry can have up to 5 phone numbers and 2 email addresses. You can assign groups, ringtones, caller IDs, speed dials and add notes to contacts entries. The calendar program offers monthly view, weekly and day view and supports recurrences and alerts. You can have up to 8 events per day. For messaging, the Samsung offers SMS, MMS and web-based email via Verizon’s Mobile Web 2.0 browser. Conclusion If you want to jump on the cell-evision wagon and you are in one of the digital mobile TV coverage areas, the Samsung u620 is one of the two choices at the moment. The small size and comfy form means you don’t have to get a bigger device just because you want an added feature. The performance for mobile TV is excellent and the device feels zippy in gaming and application launches. The audio quality for music playback is outstanding. For mobile multimedia buffs, the Samsung u620 has a lot to offer. Pro: More pocket-able than the LG TV phone, very good ergonomics, speedy in most tasks, excellent mobile TV performance, good display that can go landscape when in TV programs and in some games, and great music playback quality. Con: Reception isn’t the strongest, EVDO services can be spotty in not-well covered areas. Camera has surprisingly poor performance. Battery life is just so-so.
Price: $199.99 with 2-year contract Web sites: www.samsung.com, www.verizonwireless.com
| ||||||||||||||
