Say CHEEEZZZZEEE (Samsung SGH-V200)

Member Name: sirg0508

Product:	Samsung SGH-V200
Date:	27/12/04 (913 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Advanced features, but easy to use

Disadvantages: Only 3 games, camera not perfect

Well, it's that time of year again when people have more money than sense and go on shopping sprees in the Boxing Day sales. This is exactly what my dad did (surprisingly!) with his Christmas money. For some reason he didn't tell anyone about his purchase until the next day so I started playing with it!

The Samsung SGH-V200 is a gorgeous little phone which is quite surprisingly heavy and a little bulky for it's size and style. My dad managed to find this at a great bargain of around £65 (He wasn't specific and couldn't remember what shop he was in when he got it) but is still on T-Mobile which meant he was able to put his One2One SIM card into the phone (my dad is still back in the old days and not got round to updating his SIM to T-Mobile) but this one still works. Whatever shop he was in, the phone had 40% off which meant he was able to get it for this bargain price while other 'flip' phones are still around £100 to buy. Samsung have also brought out a new phone version so are trying to update their stock.

I'd say the phone is around 3" x 1.5" in dimension when closed and around 6" x 1.5" when it is open. I think it is a little heavier than my Nokia 3410 but is packed with a lot more features in some areas than others. The phone actually comes with two batteries - one is about half the thinkness of the other but of course will have less talk/standby time. The thicker one has been in my dads phone and I have been playing with it constantly and the battery indicator has not gone down at all - of course when you have any battery that needs charging, you should always wait till it is fully decharged to keep the battery at its optimum. The battery on this phone will last for days - although it depends on the usage - I normally kept my Nokia phone on constantly for days before it would run out!

To begin with, this is a camera phone and it has a colour screen. When the phone is closed, there is also a little blue screen which gives details of time/date and shows and a little Jack in the Box 'Hi' when the power comes on. There is a coloured light which flashes every few seconds - if the phone rings or makes any noises, the colours change - seems a rather pointless feature to me but makes the phone look colourful. The phone feels very sturdy but when the top is open, it doesn't flip flat and remains at an 80 degree angle so you may need to be carful if it is placed anywhere that could try and flatten and break it.

Opening the flap and you see the true brilliance of the phone. The screen is quite large in size compared to very early phones which only had a one or two line screen - this one is around 1.5" x 1". The opposite side of the flap holds the number keys, the power button, a quick link to the camera, direction keys, keys to answer and end a call and the select and cancel buttons. There is also a round button for T-Mobile (which will obviously only feature on a T-Mobile phone) but when I press it, it says Service Not Available so not figured out what it does yet!!

Keys:

The keys on the phone are amazingly easy to use because they are quite large and slightly raisedso suitable for young old, small and large fingers. When you press a button, the backlight is blue and illuminates the keys. Whenever the flap is closed, the screen will return to default so you could lose any messages or whatever you were on before the flap was closed. When the phone rings, the external display will show a small picture of a phone and the persons name If they are in your phonebook. The internal screen will also show a picture of a phone with the callers ID.

Screen:

The screen is amazing. It is large and extremely clear. The default screen shows the date, time, battery life, signal and Menu and Name at the bottom. If left, the screen will fade to save the battery life. This version of the phone does have screensavers but are only the animated wallpapers - e.g. on the aquarium you can have the fish staying still or moving around. There are different wallapapers to choose from - e.g. if you choose constellation you can choose from all the different horoscope signs. These are lovely pictures which also include, night, sunset and the traditional T-Mobile background which has a pink square moving about.

Menu:

If you enter the Menu, you will see brilliant colourful graphics and what functions there are if you go up or down. E.g. if you are on the Text Message screen, you can then go up to get to the Funbox or down to go to Picture Messages. Writing a new text message gives you 918 characters of space which I think is around 6 messages - if you go over into a second message, a notice with a speaker phone comes up to let you know in case you only want to send one! There is a T9 dictionary for those that like that feature. The SIM only has space for 5 messages but to make up for that, the phone will let you hold 50 messages. The CB memory also has 80 message spaces! Next in the menu comes Picture Messages. This is very similar to the Text Message Menu - there is an Inbox, Outbox, Write New Message, Delete All, Setup and MMS Profile.

Call Records gives you general notices of which calls you missed, received calls, dialed numbers, and the ability to delete records. The Camera Menu doesn't contain a lot - only the basics - Take and Send, New Photo and My Photos. Sound Settings allows you to change the ringtone, message tones, keypad tones etc. This phone has infrared settings and the albility to change greetings, language, security and displays etc. there is an organiser with a calendar, to do list, alarm, time and date settings, calculator, and currency exchange rates. Network services include diverting, barring, call waiting, network selection, caller ID (not avaiable on my dads phone), closed user group and Band Selection (this is a tri-band phone so you can change the GSM from 900/1800 to 1900).

The final menu option is Funbox and the best box of them all - GAMES!! I was quite disappointed to see there were only 3 games and two are space invader type games. The third is a MyPet - just like a Tamagochi where you have to feel, clean, take it to the hospital etc. They are strange creatures (or rather creature as there is only one to choose from which is available in different colours - blue, white and yellow). The tones seem to go on for quite a while on each game so they can't really be played late at night if people are trying to sleep. Apart from Games, there are also Downloads and WAP Browser options avaiable in the Funbox. I've not used these yet (or it would use up all the money but from the parts I was able to access, they are very easy to use and will also depend on what network your phone is on).

Tones:

If you get annoyed at the tones there are different options available which are found in the Alert section of the Sound Section - you can choose to just have the backlight, have it vibrating or just the melody - or all 3 together. If you have the tones on the lowest volume level, they are still quite loud and are not really masked by you putting your hand over the phone. The tones are Polyphonic and although there are quite a few tones already on the phone - there are no good ones.

Some more opinion:

OK, so that is the features of the phone out the way, now for my opinions - I just love the screen and the graphics - they are very clear and very colourful. So that really takes me onto the camera... it isn't the best thing in the world and depends solely on the light. When you have it on the camera, it is like a digital camera where you can see the picture through the screen - it looks rather liney and does not really change when you stop moving around. If you are far away, the picture will most likely be impossible to see. You do need to be quite close but even still, it is not going to be a perfect picture - it will never be as good as the graphics on the phone already. You are able to send pictures to your e-mail address or to other people but these have added costs and will depend on what your network are charging. T-Mobile currently charge 35p to send each picture message. An added bonus on the phone is that the camera rotates 180 degrees which is a feature that doesn't appear on some other phones.

Manual:

The manual for this phone is no easy read - it comes in at over 145 pages long and is only in English - i'm sure that is longer than the manual for our home phone!! At least it has an index and contents pages so you can skip to specific areas. If you are a beginner though - the manual is very thorough so you shouldn't get stuck.

External Features:

The side of the phone contains a little number of extra features - e.g. there is a little plastic cover which can be lifted for you to put the ear phones in, there is a volume button for the keytones which are easily pressed if you have the phone in your hand. There is also the connection for the charger and the camera lens is on the hinge between the two flips - the camera can be rotated although not very much - only to a point where the lens is just covered by the flips of the phone. The battery is easily removed.

PC Connection:

There is a CD with this phone which you can install - EasyGPRS software on your PC, and then plug in your phone to a serial port. You can upload and edit your contacts database, type messages on your computer and send them, and upload all your photos. There is actually no reference to this software in the manual apart from saying you get it in the packaging!

What you all get:

So apart from the phone, you receive the CD, the charger, the manual, the two batteries, the adapter the data cable and ear-microphone. There are also extras you can buy such as in car connector, holster, hands-free etc.


One of the downfalls I do find with the phone is that it has a small aerial sticking out of it. It unscrews easily but should always be in place - I thought we had got rid of them a while ago!!

Overall

So, I would highly recommend this phone - It shouldn't matter if you are a beginner as the phone is extremely well designed to be easy to use but also contains the added features of a great colour screen, great graphics and a good camera which although isn't perfect, is handy for being on the move and capturing things you may have missed in the past. Considering I told myself I would never want a camera phone as I never saw the point of them, this one has persuaded me a little to maybe get one! I have also only ever really had Nokia phones but seeing this Samsung one, it does seem like a good brand of phone and hopefully one that will last!

Summary: