Good things come in small packages (Samsung SGH-D500)

Member Name: marcellep

Product:	Samsung SGH-D500
Date:	04/01/07 (322 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Size, Design, Features,

Disadvantages: No battery port cover

I was looking for a phone to replace the Sanyo S750 mobile phone. I knew what I wanted and I knew that I wanted to spend less than £150.00. The network I wanted was Orange, so the search began. As usually I picked up the Argos book, checked Ebay, checked Carphone warehouse and then finally checked orange.co.uk. I have no particular phone in mind; I knew that I wanted a slide phone, which was fairly compact, and basically a good all-round phone.

After a few days of reading about the phones I narrowed the search down to two different Samsung phones. In the end I decided on the Samsung D500 for a few reason. Mainly as it was a compact phone, which was selling for a reasonable price, it was on the network I wanted, it was a slide phone and it had many features that I was looking for.

*****Price and Availability******

www.ebay.co.uk - £60.00 plus £7.00 postage second hand on Orange network
www.carephonewarehouse.co.uk £159.99 free postage and free £10.00 credit on Orange.

www.orange.co.uk - No longer sell this phone it has been replaced with the Samsung d600 on their site.

******Network******

I bought this phone on the orange network but it is also available on Mobile world, Virgin, O2 and T mobile. If you buy this phone on Ebay the chances are that the phone will be unlocked. Meaning that you can put any sim card in it.

*****What’s in the box when you receive it? *****

Providing you buy it new you will find the following within the box,

*The battery, which will require a full charge before the first use, so if it is for a present be sure to charge it fully or you, will disappoint someone.

*Obviously the new Samsung d500

*Instruction booklet for the phone, don’t worry you don’t need to read all the instruction before setting the phone up. It’s pretty straightforward.

*Charger

*Sim card, mines was an orange one as that was the network that I chose; I also had a booklet, which was called Know How. It detailed all you need to know about orange as a network and what they offer to you as a pay as you go customer.

*Hands free kit that not only saved me money but also will stop me from getting a fine when driving.


***** The Look*****

A small compact phone that is stylish and elegant in many ways. Black all over. A decent size LCD screen makes the phone easy to see when you use it. All the keys are hidden away when you’re not using the phone. Bottom of the phone supports the charge connection, which is not covered. This I felt was a little disappointing, as on the side of the phone is the usb port, which has a sliding cover on it. On the right hand side of the phone you have a small sliver button that gives you quick access to the camera a video recorder. Left hand side supports the volume buttons, which can be used to adjust the ringer volume or adjust the speaker volume when on hands free or normal mode.

Overall I would say that this is a very stylish phone with a little room for improvement.

Size - 93.5 x 45.7 x 23.5
Display Size -176 x 220 – Pixels
Colour Depth - 262K
Weight – 99g

Rating 9/10


****Features*****

May be a small compact phone but I tell you this phone offers many features in addition to the standard ones available on most phones. Sending text messages, making calls, alarm, calendar, and calculator. I will now share the additional features that are better on this phone than many others.

*The one I use the most is the camera; I can’t believe the quality of the camera on this phone its nothing sort of amazing. At the touch of a button you have taken a good quality picture using a 1.3 pixel camera. Easily stored on to your phone or sent as a multi media message to anyone anywhere. You have 96mb of memory that you can use to store your pictures on. An easily used zoom means that you will definitely not miss any picture opportunities. Many more features on with this camera including adjusting the brightness when taking pictures.

*Using the video is just as good as using the camera and defianelty just as easy, Hitting just a few buttons will allow you to record your very own video to send it via MMS or email through your phone. I especially like the quality of the sound that this phone picks up when you’re recording something. Storing the video clips is easy and straight forward, as soon as you are finished doing your video and you hit stop it will store automatically in to your phone memory.


*Blue tooth without a word is a must on any mobile phone as far as I am concerned. Phones should not be produced without it. Well this little beauty has this feature and it’s very easy to use once again. You can rename your phone, which means when other people search for blue tooth devices there phone will recognise your phone by its name rather than Samsung D500. One thing to be careful of when using blue tooth to transfer picture is that you select the correct phone as often your phone will pick up other phones. I live in a 3 bed roomed flat and my blue tooth can be picked up from anywhere in my house, I can even pick up my neighbour too.

Maybe one thing Samsung could have added to this phone is infrared, ok people might say that you have blue tooth why the hell do you need infrared. Well not all phones have blue tooth these days but you will find that phones without blue tooth will have infrared. Without using blue tooth to send pictures or ring tones it can be costly so check prices before using MMS.

* Emailing, Ok so who needs email on the move when you have text messaging these days. Well when you’re like me and you work 12hr shifts. Emailing is perfect. Just like sending a text message apart from you enter an email address. The phone connects to the Internet and sends the email just like you would on a PC. You are limited to 160 characters per email, which is a little frustrating when you want to send a long email

*If you’re like me then you often forget something when your running late and I often forget my hand free kit for the phone. Well that’s not such a problem as this phone has a built in loud speaker that allows you to talk on hands free. Easily activated when on a call just simply hit the middle button and that activates the loud speaker and of course easily deactivated the same way. Ok so its not as clear as the hand free but one thing for sure it will stop you getting a fine for suing your phone whilst driving. One thing to keep in mind is that when using the loud speaker is that it picks up all the background noise so be prepared to close the car windows to allow your caller to hear you better.

*Texting- Something that most people will do a lot of, Not the easiest phone to use to text in my eyes as I feel that the predictive text is not all that good. As you will know most phones have a internal dictionary that have thousands of words that allow you to use predictive text. Well whenever I go to use predictive text I get spell word which means that the phone does not recognise the word, I spent more time adding words to the dictionary than I did texting. I then decided it would be easier and quicker if I went back to the good old-fashioned way of texting. You know one letter at a time. Each text message can hold up to 160 characters and you can even write up to 12 pages worth. One thing I do love about this phone is you can send the same message to up to 10 people at the same time, which I think, is great especially if you have something to announce or want to wish people a merry Xmas or happy new year

*Making and Receiving calls- Good quality sound which is very important to me as I spend a lot of my time on my mobile whilst at work. A nice wee thing is when you are talking to someone that talk a wee bit too loud you can easily adjust the ear piece volume accordingly without having to hang up.


*Ring tones- not something that I pay much attention to as I usually have my phone set on vibrate due to the nature of my work. But there are many different ring tones that you can choose from and of course you can add the latest polyphonic ring tones to your phone too. Having the MP3 player on this phone means that the phone will play the latest song available just like the quality of a music cd. As I said I use the vibrate setting all the time and even this can be adjusted accordingly. \You can have it set on the basic one vibrate or have it set to do multiple vibrations depending on if you receive a text, call, email or MMS. Beware that there is a setting that will continue to vibrate until you answer the text or MMS or even read the delivery report.


*Battery life of the phone – Possibly the most important factor to most people when buying a new mobile phone. I use this phone to send approximately 50 text messages a day and about 1hr worth of calls each and every day and my battery can last 2/3 days. I only charge mines when it is completely dead and not before. Charging the phone from flat only takes about 2/3 hours. Which is good in comparison to many other phones on the market. Standby time is 12.5 days and talk time is 6.5hrs


I could go on and on about this phone as there is just so much to say about it and how good it is but I am sure this gives you a very good insight to a very impressive mobile phone.

Final thoughts on the Samsung D500, well given the fact its Samsungs first ever-blue tooth mobile phone on the UK market I certainly think they have done well for a first attempt. It’s a small sleek design that will fit in well with most people look. Offering many features that other phones do not offer. I would have no problem recommending this phone to anyone whether its young or old male or female. A phone of this size that can hold 1000 phone book entry amazes me. Only things I would change – add a cover o the bottom, of the phone to protect the battery port and add infrared to the features.

© Marcellep Dooyoo January 2007

Summary: A phone that will suit all

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