Samsung knows how to make fantastic products & this is no exception! (Samsung SGH-D900i)

Member Name: cazkins

Product:	Samsung SGH-D900i
Date:	17/09/08 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sleek design, good menu layout and features

Disadvantages: Limited backgrounds/sounds to choose from

I bought my Samsung D900i Chrome about 2 months ago for £65 off ebay. I wanted an unlocked phone and it was slightly cheaper than I could find it in the shops as they were retailing around £90. It can now be bought for £70 / £80 (£69.99 on O2 from Tesco) so it has come down in price.

Samsung is a very trustworthy brand and I've never had any major issues with them so I thought this would be a good investment and so far I haven't been disappointed with this phone. As I got this second hand, I unfortunately can't vouch for what you get in the box, but I do know that any extras you want to buy, ie. memory card/usb cable, can be bought easily especially on ebay and are well-priced. For your money, you get a thin, lightweight sexy slide phone. It weighs only 93g and is a mere 13mm thick. This makes it perfect for carrying around with you and because it's not at all bulky it's easier to use. The design is sleek and features 10 functional buttons on the top of the slider underneath the screen. You can edit what the buttons do, for example if you want to press the east key to start a mms message you can! To one side is the charger/usb slot and the camera button, and to the other is the memory card slot and arrow buttons (ie. to adjust the volume). My only problem with the front keys is that the north key can be quite hard to use as it sticks slightly, but this may just be my phone. It's a good idea to go into a shop and test run the phone to make sure you find the keys suitable. It's nice to have such a good looking phone, but it's no good if you can't use it!

When you slide the phone open you are presented with a neat keypad. Although the keys aren't really raised, they are still very easy to use. I've found that some keys are either indented, too clicky or too small, but Samsung seem to have designed these perfectly. The main screen provides you with a 262k colour display and the necessities are clear when you open the phone: the signal, battery life, message alerts, top two key options and a background of your choice. I thought that the selection of templates/colours/backgrounds were limited compared to phones I've had in the past, so that was a bit disappointing. You can use a USB cable though and download off your PC.

The main features of this phone include:
MP3 Player
FM radio
Vibration Alerts
Wap enabled
Quadband
3 megapixel camera with 4x zoom, flash & video recording / playback
Bluetooth
Up to 390 minutes talk time.
Up to 260 hours standby time.
TV-out so you can connect to your television
USB 2.0 connectivity
Java Games
SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
70MB memory + card slot for expansion

The camera is good quality in my opinion so it's good to know that you don't always have to carry your digi cam with you when you want to take a few snaps. The sound quality is also of a good standard so the polyphonic/mp3 ringtones, mp3 tracks and video playback all sound good.

It depends on how often you use your phone, but I leave mine on 24 hrs and use it for ocassional texts/calls. I've found that I need to charge it every 2 days or so, so although some people will say the battery life isn't great, for a good phone like this I would say it's about average.

You can access the standard applications which are all presented in a well-laid out menu. The 9 main selections include: Call Log, Address Book, Applications (ie. music, radio, games), My Files (where you can save your music/photos), Messages, Brower, Planner (for items such as alarm, calculator, converter & calendar), Camera and Settings (to adjust settings such as time/date, layout, display and internal settings).

For it's price, I think it's a very good mobile. The slide mechanism is quite smooth without having to worry that it'll open in your bag and it's physical build is sleek and sexy. That said, it's still quite sturdy and it's resisted being scratched even though I've had it in my bag where it's been subjected to my car keys! Perhaps I haven't had this long enough to find problematic glitches but so far it's a brilliant little mobile.

Summary: A great phone at a reasonable price

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