Bye bye Samsung (Samsung SGH-E720)

Member Name: Popalee

Product:	Samsung SGH-E720
Date:	01/11/05 (407 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small, good screen resolution

Disadvantages: poor quality sound, too many key presses required for everything

I "upgraded" to this phone recently because I wanted to try a clamshell phone, having previously spurned them. I should have stuck to my first instinct. If you'd like to know why, read on.


Appearance
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This phone looks great- smooth and sleek. It's also really small when closed, which to me is a big plus. The outside has a small screen, which you can personalise with a clock (3 different designs are provided) or any other picture. Once closed the screen on the front turns off within a few seconds though, leaving a blank black square, saving on battery power, but meaning you don't get to enjoy your carefully chosen, personality reflecting design. One other downside of the appearance is that it only comes in slate grey. Providing other colour options might have been a nice touch.

The inside screen is a good size, and the resolution is quite good. It's spoiled though, by the tacky looking meny down the left hand side, which you can't seem to hide. You can change the colour of it, which is something I guess.

Features
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This phone comes with all the standard features expected of a mobile phone these days, ie.:
-Megapixel camera (1152 x 864 pixels) with digital zoom (x4), effects and flash
-Video recorder with sound (352 x 288 pixels; up to 1 hour)
-Voice recorder
-Games: Bobby Carrot, Airship Racing, Arch Angel, Freekick
-Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB, SyncML WAP 2.0, GPRS class 10
-Size: 91 x 45 x 23 mm
-Weight: 80g
-MP3 PLAYER

I'm not going to go into detail about all of these features, I'll just tell you a little about some of them, to give you an idea of why I feel the way I do about this phone.

Camera
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Using the camera is pretty straightforward, the same as with most phones. It has some nifty features, like a flash and the ability to add different effects to your photos.

The resolution on this camera is fantastic. Pictures look great on the phone screen, and seem to maintain that quality when transferred to another phone. I didn't try uploading any to my computer or printing them so I can't tell you how they turn out.

MP3 Player
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These seem to be almost as common as cameras on phones these days, so while it's a nice addition it's probably not the feature that will make you choose this phone. The cool thing about the MP3 player on the E720 is that you can use it while the phone's closed and it shows a little graphic equaliser type graphic. The downside is: the sound is tinny, and just not up to the standard of some of the Nokia or Sony Ericsson phones around. Another problem I had was that it kept telling me I had no files, and yet I had mp3's on my phone. I couldn't seem to find away to get the player to recognise and play them (There may be a way, so this could be me, not the phone).

Games
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The games included are listed above. They're all Java games so they look greet. I found them a lot of fun to play, although they do use a lot of battery power (to be expected I guess).

They are stored in a strange place in the menu though, I think it was called Java world, and then you have to look in applications.


Ease of Use
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Figuring out how to use the phone was easy, especially after reading the manual :-). Nothing's much different from your standard phone. Rather than the nipple or joystick provided on some phones, this one has a 4 button scrolling system.

I found the menu a bit annoying, it just wasn't designed for simple one touch operation, so it's always a matter of scrolling through and choosing numerous other menus before you finally get to the one you want.

As a phone?
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OK, there are two reasons I like to have a mobile phone- so I can talk to people and so I can text them. The e720's performance in both of these areas is what lets it down.

Calling
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Making calls is easy enough. Geting them is easy to. Understanding what the person you are talking to is saying? Well, that's another story. I read reviews of this phone before I bought it that said it sounded as if you were talking through a sock when you used it. I'm here to tell you, it's true! The sound is muffled which makes it difficult to understand what the person you are talking to is saying. I kept having to ask people to repeat themselves.

Texting
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OK, there ARE some cute message alerts that sound great. Sending texts is easy enough- although the flat keypad is a bit difficult to use (but then I had trouble with my K700i when I first got it as well, so I think the keypad is something you get used to)

What I didn't like about texting on this phone was the number of keypresses required to enter a recipient. My K700i neatly stores the names of people I've most recently texted and automoatically shows them when I go to send a message. While the e720 also does this, you first have to choose recent recipients, scroll through, choose a name, press select... Maybe I've been spoiled with the k700i but I found this so frustrating it was one of the main reasons I sent the phone back. Ok, I may have lived with it if: the mp3 player worked properly and sounded good, and I could hear what people were saying clearly when I was talking to them but given the other downfalls of this phone, this one really was the straw that broke the camels back.

Summary: The sound quality on this sound is so poor, I can't recommend it.

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