A Super Cool Phone
Written: Aug 01 '03
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Pros: Pretty, Cool, Easy to Hold, Clear Calls, Verizon, Feature Rich, Large Button, Calendar, Much More
Cons: Too Quiet, Worst Ringtones Possible, Faceplates Expensive, Hard to Use (At First)
The Bottom Line: If you want a good phone and want Verizon service this is a great phone. If you want something like true PDA fuctions or a color screen look elsewhere.
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| demdev30's Full Review: Samsung SCH-A310 Mobile Phone |
The A310, my new personal companion. This phone now holds my contacts, scheduler and contact to the world. I am going to start by giving you the features of this phone from the perspective of what things mean to the end user.
Digital (two bands I believe) and Analog Phone
Text Messaging
Internet Access
500 Number Phone Book
20 Voice Dial Numbers
Voice Memo
Voice Answer
E-911 Abilities (GPS)
3 Games
Polyphonic Ringtones
Customizable Displays
Planner
Calculator
(and more but features I know nothing about)
I will break this down into a discussion of each of the above:
Digital (two bands I believe) and Analog Phone:
This means that you can connect to virtually every Verizon tower around. Including the old analog ones. Verizon by the way in the New York metro region seems to have the best support around. Often other people with their Att&t phones ask to borrow mine because they don't get a signal.
Text Messaging:
This is a feature I hardly ever use because we do not subscribe to text messaging. This phone would be good for text messaging because it has T9 word recognition which allows you to type words with pressing each key once. Text messaging can be a useful feature if you can't get a hold of someone and a voice mail is too much work or voice mail is unavailable.
Internet Access:
This phone has internet capabilities which I bet benefit from T9 and the easy to read display but we don't subscribe to it so I don't know for sure.
500 Number Phone Book:
This is a great featuring allowing you to store almost every number you would every need in this little phone. This can be helpful for looking people up or for quick calling. E-mail addresses are also available to store. However keep in mind that it's a 500 number phone book. So, while you can store upto five numbers and an e-mail address under each name these count toward the 500 total.
20 Number Voice Dial Numbers:
These allow you to record voice tags to correspond with numbers which can make hands free dialing possible or dialing without looking up the number. This feature spooks people sometimes when you just say "voice mail" into the phone. This feature works fairly well except you have to remember what you said and how you said it for this to work. For example I recorded the name "Camp Sagamore" for where I work and saying Sagamore didn't work because I forgot the word camp. This features biggest problem is that the manual doesn't describe how to work it with names already in the phone book. I had to do a google groups search to figure it out.
Voice Memo:
A nice feature where you can record reminders for yourself. I don't as of yet know how much the phone can hold I have not filled it up yet.
Voice Answer:
A voice machine type feature that allows you to avoid signing up for voice mail accept it doesn't allow for anymore than two rings before kicking in. There is a monitoring feature that allows you to listen to the voice mail as it is being recorded and then to press send to talk to the person.
E911 Capabilities (GPS):
This allows for emergency services to find you by GPS. However it doesn't act as a standard GPS device in that you can't see where you are. You can turn on the GPS feature to be active all the time however at this time no one really uses it outside of emergency services so you can save the battery life. (This feature is activated automatically on 911 calls).
3 Games:
This phone comes with three games, Push Push, Fly Ribbon and Spider Hunter. These games are all pretty weak so you have to be really bored to play them. They also drain the battery.
Polyphonic Ringtones:
This phone has polyphonic ringtones (more than one instrument at a time). However they are two quiet and are not replaceable so you are stuck with them and they are often very annoying. The lack of a regular ring is a horrible oversight.
Customizable Displays:
You can choose a animation to use when turning the phone on and off and a wallpaper. Really just a gimmick.
Planner:
This phone has a small planner (20 appointments) however it can be useful in a pinch. The phone can do enough PDA functions for me not to need one of those. The planner benefits from T9 text entry as well. The only problem is that you can't set the alerts to vibrate rather then ring, a huge oversight.
Calculator:
This phone has a simple calculator built in.
This phone's weaknesses are discussed below:
Monochrome Screen
Too Quiet
No Downloadable Ringtones
Too Hard to Use
Monochrome Screen:
This phone only has a monochrome screen and not color. However in my opinion color is overrated and a gimmick anyway.
Too Quiet:
The phone is too quiet and difficult to hear in extremely crowded places, both voice and rings. However the other end appears to have no trouble hearing you.
Too Hard to Use:
Some features are difficult to access. The manual is to long to use to quickly the phone would benefit from on screen instructions. However, this problem corrects itself when you use it enough.
I almost wrote a Epinion giving this phone a 2 then decided I should "play" withit a bit more before reviewing. When I did that I learned of all this phones hidden gems and now have changed my review to accommodate this and have decided to give this phone a strong 4.
This phone has been very durable, surviving a few drops.
Battery life is okay but nothing special. I can't say much here as I have done no formal testing.
“All We Are Saying is Give Peace a Chance”
- John Lennon
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): Verizon Deal
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Epinions.com ID:
demdev30
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Member: Andrew Watiker
Location: Scarsdale, NY, USA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
I'm a 17 year old living a suburban life in New York. Peace & Love!
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