Samsung is super! (Samsung SGH-E250)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Samsung SGH-E250
Date:	30/08/08 (881 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely looking, great call clarity, reliable, easy to use texting, very reasonably priced

Disadvantages: I wish the memory capacity was bigger

I had a lovely little basic Motorola flip mobile phone that was just what I needed; great call clarity, texts were simple to write and send, there was one good game and the handset was durable. Unfortunately it wasn't durable to survive a 60° wash in my ditzy granddaughters jeans, although I still haven't got to the bottom as to why MY mobile was in HER pocket!

I need a mobile phone but I do not want an all singing-all dancing model, I want a reasonably priced PAYG handset that looks nice (as they all do these days) that has easy to use menu screens and that I can use to make calls and send the odd text. So with that rather short list of requirements I dragged my son in law along to the Carphone Warehouse for his advice regarding potential phones.

It turned out he wasn't needed as the first thing I saw when I walked in was a gorgeous deep pink Samsung E250, which was the phone I walked out with 20 minutes later after perusing the other ten millions handsets in the shop and eventually returning to it! It cost me £32 and I think it's a cracking little phone for the price.

A slide phone, the sliding mechanism is smooth with no annoying clicks or catches when it reaches the end of its slide. It's a really comfortable phone to hold and fits nicely in my hand whether it's open or closed, the edges are nicely rounded which means that even during a long call my hands don't get stiff or ache while I'm holding it.

The menus I find very easy to use and I got used to them within an hour or two of first switching the phone on. The only horrible, horrible thing about this phone is that every other phone I have ever used uses the centre 'OK' to take me to the main menu, the 'OK' button on this Samsung will immediately start connecting to the internet and then it's a race against time to press the cancel button before it starts eating my credit!

Once you're in the main menu screen you can access the Settings and it's from here that you can customise the phone and get it exactly how you want it. There are a lot of things you can change from their default settings from mundane functions like the time and date to the more interesting display settings where you set your wallpaper and background colours.

It's very simple to add contacts to this phone and also to access them quickly when I want to make a call. There is also speed dialling for nine numbers, although I never use this because I can never remember who I've assigned to what number! Even without using the speed dial it's extremely quick and easy to dial a number through my contacts list. I love the fact that I can assign a photograph to each person in my phone book so that when they call me their photo will flash up onto my phone screen.

Call clarity is excellent on both incoming and outgoing calls. I can always hear perfectly and there is no distortion of voices at all, reception is very good in my opinion and I rarely get one of those jerky disjointed conversations where the other person or myself keeps cutting out. The default call volume is perfect in my opinion, but you can adjust it up or down using the volume button at the side of the handset. This same button is also used to higher or lower the keypad volume, it's a responsive volume button located in a convenient spot on the handset so I'm not constantly knocking it when I'm on a call and half deafening myself!

Texting is very easy on the Samsung E250. The first thing I did was switch off the predictive text function because trying to use this tends to bring on a migraine, and once I was in normal text mode I was in familiar territory. You can type up to 12 pages at a time and I find it simple to flick between the alphabetical, numerical and capital letters using the star key. When sending a text you will be given the choice of inputting the phone number yourself or using the phonebook, I can never remember numbers so always go through to the phonebook where I can choose as many people as I like to receive this message. I like that all I have to do is place a tick in the box next to the people I want to send the message to instead of having to keep clicking 'add number' and going all the way back to the phone book for each person like I had to with the Motorola.

There are a few polyphonic and realtone ringtones and message tones to choose from, but this phone is WAP enabled so you will have no problems downloading more up to date ones if these are not enough. Personally I like a plain and simple 'ring ring' for my calls and I have a tinkling sound set for when I receive a text. It's easy to change between ringtones and you can choose to have your ringtone playing either alone or with a vibration, the ringtone is quite loud enough to not really need the vibrate function unless you have to have your phone on silent mode.

The battery life is very good, I regularly get three or four days from a full charge and even when the battery is empty and flashing I can still make a phone call or send a few texts. It took a few charges and discharges to get the battery up to speed, but now it's absolutely brilliant.

The camera on the Samsung E250 is very good I think. I only really use the camera on my phone for taking small staged shots as I usually carry my digital camera when I am going out, and for this purpose I think the camera is fine. If you are used to some massively expensive camera phone then you're going to be disappointed, but I think the clarity of the photographs and the colours within them are fantastic compared to the quality produced from my Motorola. I have transferred several photographs to the PC using the USB lead provided in the box and the quality is good on the larger screen, although I have noticed that photos with more than two faces tends to blur slightly when scaled up for viewing on the PC monitor.

There is also a good video camera with zoom function. Again, for £32 please do not be expecting miracles because this is a basic video recorder with sound and nothing more. Perfect for capturing my baby granddaughters first ride on the roundabout and I even caught her very first steps on video on my E250! The pictures are sharp and the sound good when played back, I cannot fault the video at all.

Other functions include an alarm clock, memo section (where I am currently keeping note of Christmas present ideas), calendar, FM radio, MP3 player and lots more that would interest a techie buff more than they do me! It also uses bluetooth to enable you to connect with other devices. I will say that the memory is not very good at all, although you can buy a MicroSD card to expand this. I don't have a card and with about 40 photos, 3 short videos and 2 songs stored my memory is now more or less full which is disappointing. There are a couple of Java games, nothing that really interests me but my granddaughter is fond of a game called Cannonball which is similar to the old arcade game where you have to hit the blocks with the ball to clear the screen. There are also several taster games, which you can play for two minutes and then choose whether to download it for a £3 fee or not.

The Samsung E250 comes in a choice of colours; black, silver, deep pink and I noticed a lovely pinky-lilac variety in Carphone Warehouse today. I have the deep pink one and I think it's feminine but not too immature looking, it's a lovely looking phone in my opinion and I'd love to see Samsung bring out a white one as I think that would look great!

Overall I would thoroughly recommend this phone. I have since bought my twelve year old granddaughter a silver one and she loves it, the fact that it has a decent camera and MP3 player definitely appeals to her and she says she has had compliments from her school friends about it which means they approve so she's happy!

Summary: A great phone which I think will last me a long time.

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