Come back Nokia, all is forgiven (Samsung SGH-E600)

Member Name: kateteen

Product:	Samsung SGH-E600
Date:	08/09/04 (3103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pretty, High quality camera, Video

Disadvantages: Not practical, Bad calender

Before i bought this phone i was adamant that Nokia were the only type of mobile i'd ever use. After having my Samsung E600 for two months i can quite safely say i will never again stray from the Nokia path.
I was tempted into buying this phone based on aesthetic value rather than actual practical features of the phone. Yes its a good looking phone, the inbuilt camera is of amazing quality and

The ring tones are outstanding. The phone is a great size and shape measuring 82x42x24mm and weighing 85 grams. It is a flip design phone (which i've always loved as they're the type of phones they always have in Hollywood movies, someone ends the conversation then snaps the phone shut) with an attractive rounded shape to it. Another feature that is strange to get used to after using Nokia's for the last few years is the aerial. Its around 20mm long which brings the phones total length to around 100mm.

The items supplied in the box with the phone are: Handset (obviously), charger, two batteries (one regular and one slim, i prefer to use the slim battery as the regular one juts out from the back of the phone very slightly) and a 186 page manual which, quite frankly, is more information than i'm willing to read. I read the basics on how to get my phone working but from there on i got to know the phone myself and i had it pretty much sussed within an hour.

I'm going to list the menu items and fatures of the phone and describe my experiences with them.

Front screen- The phone has a small screen and light on the front, if the arrow button on the side is held down the screen illuminates to show you the time and date as well as battery power and signal. If you get a message or phone call the light flashes in various colours. When you get a phone call the callers ID is shown on the screen and when you recieve a message an envelope symbol shows on screen. There is an option in phone settings to have the light flash every
five seconds or so, i assume this is so you know your phone is switched on and working. This drives me crazy, especially at night so i keep it switched off. It can be turned on by turning service light on.

Text Messages- Unlike Nokia phones there are no folders to sort your messages into so any messages you decide to keep have to be stored in you inbox or outbox in the same way as early Nokia phones. You can store up to 200 text messages but i have found i don't like storing funny or interesting messages when i have no way to divide and catagorise them. Writing texts is also quite a pain in the backside. The buttons you use to change between upper and lower case and switching on and off predictive text are different to Nokia phones but its something you soon get used to. What i can not get used to is that it doesn't store customised words in predictive text like Nokia phones do. There are words i use very often that aren't in predictive text and i find it very irritating that i have to re type these every time i want to use them. Another thing that bothers me (and a few friends of mine who have the same phone) is that the phones sometimes doesn't register a letter when you've pressed a key. It makes writing texts a lot more time consuming as i'm constantly watching the screen to check it has registered every letter i've pressed. Sent messages can be stored but you have to remember to press Send and Save as sent messages are not automatically saved so if you forget to do this your sent message will be lost forever. Automatic storage of sent messages is something i got used to with Nokia phones and i found it very useful so being without it can be very annoying at times, particularly after a drunken night out when i want to know what i've been saying to people!

Multimedia messages- Multimedia messaging on this phone is fantastic due to the amazing quality of the sounds and pictures. I find myself using MMS a lot more
often than i did with my old Nokia phone as the picture quality is so much higher. Just incase you don't know what Mulitmedia messaging is Samsung define it as: 'It provides automatic and immediate delivery of personal multimedia messages from phone to phone or phone to e-mail.'

Call Records- Split into the categories: Missed calls, Recieved calls and Dialled calls as is standard on most phones. You can find out what times called were made and recieved.

Camera- As i have mentioned before, the quality of the inbuilt camera is astounding. When you use the camera with the phone flipped open you can use the screen as a viewfinder. There is also a camera button on the side of the phone which, if held down, starts the camera function so you can take pictures without flipping your phone open or using the viewfinder. I've found this is only really useful to take pictures of yourself. There is 5120KB of storage for photos. Another camera function is taking Videos. Each video can last for up to 20 seconds. The quality is the same as it is with the camera. The video function records sound but to hear it you either need to hold the phone to your ear or use the hands free headset.

Sound settings- I have already downloaded 63 ringtones and as far as i can tell i have space for more. If you don't want to download ringtones the ones provided are fine, they're good quality but i find the tunes a bit stupid and annoying. The ring volume has five levels with level one being very quiet and level five being very loud. I find level two best for around the house and work and level five only necessary in pubs and clubs. You can set the alert type to either play a tune, just vibrate, just flash the light on the front of the phone or to vibrate and ring. Unlike the Nokia phones which Vibrate and play the tune and the same time this phone vibrate for around 15 seconds then starts to ring. I often end up missing calls with
this setting so
i tend not to use it. You can set the SMS and MMS alert types to either beep once, vibrate, only flash the light on the front of the phone or to play one of ten irritating sounds. You can also set a sound to play when you open and close the phone but i find that incredibly irritating.

Phone settings- In here you can: Activate infrared, change display settings (wallpaper, the colour of the outer screen, the menu style, how long the backlight to the screen stays on and whether you have the service light operating), change your welcome message (the message that displays when you turn your phone on), change the language and change security settings.

Organiser- Contains: the alarm function (which is split into the categories: once alarm, daily alarm and morning call. You can set the morning call to go off at the same time every morning from monday to friday or monday to saturday. I always deactivate this alarm on friday as it goes off on the weekend even though it isn't programmed too, i assume this must be a fault with my phone! The daily alarm goes off at the same time every day until you deactivate it), Calender function (which is far inferior to the Nokia calender, you can save up to a total of 30 memos on the calender but when you reach 30 you can't place anymore unless you delete some. For this reason i don't use the calender a lot) set time and date, calculator, to do list, record voice memos and currency converter.

Network services- To change things such as call diverting and barring, call waiting and network selection.

Funbox- Not as fun as it sounds. Contained in here are: WAP browser, Games (the games supplied are Bubblesmile, Fun2Link, Golf and Chess. I dislike all of these games, especially Fun2Link which actually involves connecting pieces of pipe to complete what look like a section of drain), Sounds (any sounds you download, ringtones mainly), images (which shows you your photos and memory status for games,
sounds and images.

While i don't deny that this is a superb quality phone, i am planning to buy a Nokia phone and keep this one for emergencies, the shallower qualities of the phone such as the camera and sounds are astounding but the practical qualities such as text messaging and the calender and far inferior to Nokia phones.

Summary: