A good iPhone alternative (Samsung SGH-F480)

Member Name: lee667

Product:	Samsung SGH-F480
Date:	05/10/08 (1333 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent build quality, easy to use

Disadvantages: Rubbish in-call volume

I've had this phone since Wednesday when I upgraded with Orange. I'd spent the last 2 weeks researching which phone I was going to go for next and I had narrowed my choices down to this phone and the Samsung U900. I plumped for this one as I already had a U600 and the U900 was pretty much the same and I fancied a change.

To start off with, this phone is slim, and doesn't weight that much which is a good thing as I hardly notice it when it's in my pocket.

The touch screen is pretty easy to use, although texting on it will take a little while to gt used to. A little tip would be to increase the vibration feedback for when your texting so that you know when a press has been successful. If you want to scroll down and across the screen all you do is hold your finger down on the screen and move up and down or left to right.

It also comes with a 5 megapixel camera, and to be honest, when you first take pictures you may notice that the quality doesn't look that good. Not sure why this is, but when you move the pictures over to a pc or laptop then the quality is top notch.

Apart from the menu screen you also get a widget screen. Here you can add a picture as a wallpaper, and on the left you get widgets, which are basically quick access buttons and also show information like date and time. From what I can gather, these cannot be adjusted though but I don't really mind.

As with any new phone these days you can change the ringtone to pretty much anything you want, and the same can also be done for the message tone which is a nice touch.

You can set the phone to automatically lock after a few seconds which does come in handy but this also locks it when you make a call so if you end up in a menu system then you'll need to unlock it to access the keypad. The speaker phone is also nice and loud and clear.

As this phone is a 3G phone you can also surf the net. The standard browser isn't the best and I plan to download the opera one which I've heard is better and you can also do video calling which is pretty wicked.

I haven't tested out the FM radio yet as I don't really use the headphones with phones so can't really comment on the quality of that.

If you have owned a Samsung phone in recent years then the menu layout is pretty similar to the U600 and the U900 so it didn't take much time for me to get used to.

There are a couple of issues with it though, but these can be resolved straight away.

First, the battery life can be poor, but this is because of the 3G network. If you're not going to use the 3G for a while then I would suggest switching this off as you will save a lot of battery. I haven't charged mine up for 3 days and with light texting and calling the battery is still on 3 bars.

Secondly, you only get 1 free game with it, which to be honest, isn't the best game ever, but this is only a minor gripe.

And thirdly, and probably most importantly, the in-call volume is bad, really bad. Some people say that switching off the 3G improves it slightly, and I didn't find this, but also the volume limits are set to really low decibles. Even with it turned up to 7 I struggled to hear people however I have found a way to amend this, and having done mine I can now hear people clearly on level 3 and 4. If you would like to know what to do then please drop me a message, but please keep in mind that I won't be held responsible should anything happen to your phone. I haven't had any problems with my phone since doing it but that's not to say it wouldn't affect someone elses.

Overall though, this phone is very impressive and a good rival to the iPhone. If you're looking at trying out a touchscreen phone then be sure to check out this offering from Samsung!

Summary: A phone worth checking out if you're after a touchscreen

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