A fancy swivelly gadget for you (Samsung P400)

Member Name: Pablosammy

Product:	Samsung P400
Date:	26/03/04 (897 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smart, Easy to use, Good camera

Disadvantages: Not to everybody's taste, No bluetooth

INTRODUCTI ON
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Everybody has a mobile phone nowadays. Nobody can remember what life was like without one, or how they coped. Did we really have to make solid arrangements with people and turn up on time? How did we know if somebody was going to turn up late? How did we let somebody know how we felt without having to talk to them at all? The mobile phone is a revolution that has completely changed the way we live and work.

It is a highly personal device used solely by you, chosen by you and adapted the way you want it to be. You have your own ringtones, wallpaper, covers and contact numbers. It says who you are, so it makes sense that you would want to make an informed choice when picking a new phone. I am a serial gadget-fiend and I want my phone to be more than just a phone. I am also a student with very little money, so an O2 XDA is a little out of my price range! When O2 online offered me the Samsung SGH-P400 for £29.99, who was I to refuse, especially seeing as it seemed to be £150+ everywhere else at the time?


MAIN FEATURES (QUICKLY!)
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A gimmicky flip phone with a gimmicky flashing light on the front, a 180 degree rotating camera, a 180 degree swiveling screen, polyphonic ringtones and a big, bright colour screen (all gimmicky). I love gimmicks! Also: SMS, MMS, EMS, irDA port, no bluetooth :-(, 2 supplied batteries (different sizes and capacities), data cable, hands-free microphone and ear-bud, finger strap (a girly ring with a tiny plastic diamond to stop those darn thieves snatching your new toy!). Supplied software: GPRS stuff that I haven't used (
9;asyGPRS ver. 2.1.6 in my box).


ERGONOMIC& #83;
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The phone is well built to high tolerances, with very little backlash from any of the parts. It opens and closes how it should, and the swiveling screen is a lot sturdier than I thought it would be. I've had mine for a couple of months and there are no signs of it getting loose as some other reviewers suggested it might. The screen swivels into position with just the right amount of resistance and locks home with a discreet but satisfying click. The camera rotates by 180 degrees, but to be honest you'll only ever have it pointed in one of two directions - away from your face or straight into your face (so you can send a self-portrait MMS to that long-distance boy/girlfriend! Aaaah...).

The phone feels OK in your hand, although I've held more comfortable phones. Texting can be slightly slow when compared to the best. The buttons tend to be in the right place intuitively, including the volume control buttons on the side which I find are perfectly below my fore and middle finger when in a call. They're not so sensitive that you change the volume unknowingly either, they need a good press!

The swiveling screen is a gimmick, pure and simple. I can't think of a single occasion when you'd want to leave the screen open to damage, and it doesn't even look right when it's shut. The Samsung logo is upside down for a start! It might be useful when you're taking photos, but its use really is limited. It is a head turner though!

The phone feels nicest with the smaller battery attached in my opinion, but it's a close run thing because there's not really a huge difference between the battery sizes or weights.

4/5

MEMORY <
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SMS: 20 on SIM card, 200 on phone, 80 on CB (Cell Broadcast - traffic and such) = 300 total
MMS: 700Kb of storage space
Phonebook entries: 250 on SIM card, 1000 on phone = 1250 total
Games: 512Kb of storage space
Sounds and pictures: 1945Kb of storage space

Generally speaking, there's enough room on this phone for all except the most demanding or most popular of users. I haven't, and don't think I ever will, get close to filling any of the allocations (bar the SMS memory, but I'm used to having just 20 on my previous phone!). Java applications can be downloaded, but this isn't a smartphone so don't expect massive amounts of cross-compatibility.

4.5/5


SCREEN AND CAMERA
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The screen is large and bright, and with 65000 colours it looks brilliant. It's as sharp as a knife, and only limited by its low-ish resolution (compared to PDAs or good smartphones). The animations it displays when you are making or receiving a call or sending a message are very nice!

The camera produces reasonable quality JPEGs with good colour and exposure. Pictures are higher res than the resolution of the screen (about twice the size, I think), and as a result they look sharp on the phone screen. The viewfinder updates smoothly, something my old phone struggled with. The results are among the best I've seen on ANY camera phone. I haven't hooked it up to my PC yet, and don't feel the need to - the camera, despite what anybody says, is a fun gimmick but it will not replace your usual digital camera yet.

There is an excellent viewing menu in the phone,
which displays the pictures in a neat thumbnail format, and they are accessed quickly too. Alternatively you can just flick through one by one.

4/5


MEDIA (RINGTONES, WALLPAPER, GAMES)
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The supplied ringtones are pretty standard polyphonic affairs, as you would expect, although they do sound a lot nicer than on many other phones. The P400 is TrueTone ready, which means the phone can play the latest type of ringtones that include speech/singing. I'm a loyal football fan and I just had to download my team's running-out tune, but my friends tell me it's the worst ringtone they've ever heard (Mike Post's "The Rockford Files" from the TV series)!

Samsung could have done a lot better with the wallpapers. The analogue and digital clock backgrounds are useful and reasonably smart, and the calendar background makes it look like a smartphone. The rest are low-framerate animations (an eagle, a ship and a Windows XP style field complete with growing flowers, plus a couple of others) that are frankly poor in my opinion. Costly downloads to ensue...

The games are also pretty dull affairs. BubbleSmile is a colourful and fun little puzzle game that's evolved from Tetris, and is the best of the bunch. There is a poor quality golf simulation, where I would have preferred a top-down crazy-golf game like those found on some Sony Ericsson phones, and a Chess game. There is also a game called Fun2Link, which is identical to an old Windows game called Pipe, if anybody remembers it?

JAVA downloads seem pretty limited for some reason, and I could only find
compatible games on the Samsung website. Not sure why this is, and I hope it's a problem that gets sorted out because BubbleSmile doesn't have much lasting appeal! Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough...

3/5

AESTHETIC& #83;
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Mixed opinions on this one. This is definitely a phone designed with blokes in mind, being slightly bigger than some phones I've seen. Saying that, it's no brick either and it fits nicely in the pocket. The phone is finished to a high standard in silver plastic and some chromed parts. There's no screen on the outside of the flip section, meaning you can't see who's calling until you open the phone. Not too big a problem, because it doesn't answer automatically when you do this. In the screen's place is a little flashing light called the service light.

The service light is a small row of coloured LEDs behind frosted plastic on the front of the phone. They flash periodically in colours of your choice, or more rapidly when you have an incoming call or message. I found it annoying at night when I didn't have a call or message because it is quite bright, but it can be turned off.

The phone looks very 'gadget-y', if you see where I'm coming from! This tends to split opinion, but I really like how it looks. There are plenty of pictures online for you to make your own mind up - read the first lines of my second paragraph again before you worry what other people will think!

As has been said before, the screen is bright, colourful, sharp and certainly looks the part. The people looking over your shoulder will be impressed!

4/5

OTHER FEATURES AND WAP
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The WAP browser is simple enough to use, and the pages appear quickly enough. The screen helps, as it is nice and clear. Nothing overwhelming here, pretty standard stuff in all.

The supplied hands-free kit is quite good quality, especially considering the price of third-party sets, although it can sound slightly muffled at both ends. Overall though, it is entirely usable and a welcome addition to the package.

The organiser functions nicely, and there is a hotkey that takes you straight to the calendar from the wallpaper screen. Various alarm options are available, making it more functional than your typical alarm clock! Standard To Do lists and voice memos can be made.

A ring is supplied which is slightly too small for my fat fingers, but prevents your phone being snatched out of your hand while texting. A nice idea from Samsung, and one that I haven't seen before.

The lack of Bluetooth is annoying. I've seen the amount of fun my friends have hijacking, sorry, connecting to other bluetooth devices! Surely this will become a standard feature in all new phones sooner or later?

4/5


I can't think of anything else to write about. Overall, this phone is a very attractive and usable device, and can now be found at very reasonable prices (or even free) on contract. Pay as you go customers will have to fork out £400+, the poor souls.

Wholly recommended, but check the other phones available before you decide whether it's for you or not.

Happy shopping!

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