Samsung Does It Again (Samsung SGH-V200)

Member Name: rclens

Product:	Samsung SGH-V200
Date:	23/11/03 (505 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Rotating Camera, Colour Screen, Polyphonic Ringtones

Disadvantages: Poor Battery Life, Naff Ringtones, No Java

The Samsung V200 is one of the more innovative phones on the market. Although it has now been superceded by the tremendous Samsung E700 and the Nokia N-Gage phone come console, the V200 has the technology to support any users requirements and provide quality to boot.

General:

The V200 uses all the more recent mobile breakthroughs such as an integrated camera, multimedia (picture) messaging and polyphonic ringtones. All these gizmos add multi functionality to a mobile but naturally, as with most breakthrough technology, there are drawbacks.

The WAP internet on the phone are fairly fast as they can now be GPRS enabled but speed does seem to differ depending on your network signal. Up to 10 favourite sites can be stored on the phone and accessed easily.

The sound quality of calls on this phone is excellent and allows for clear and unbroken conversations. The clam style shell of the phone also removes the accidental calling if keypads are not locked: one problem Nokia phones suffer from.

The contact book on the phone is good too. It allows for 500 numbers to be stored additionally to the SIM card. It also has the ability to store e-mail addresses and have more numbers stored under each contact name, denoting whether the number is a mobile, business or home entry: clever stuff!

Camera:

The camera is probably the best I have seen thus far from all manufacturers. It provides an excellent picture quality in good lighting but fails in the dark due to no flash being included; not even the colour intensity helps here. The zoom function is one that is very useful. It allows the user to focus in on certain pictures when far away and get a closer image. However, do not expect miracles as the zoom magnifies at a fairly poor standard and allows for adequate but not tremendous closeness.
The main benefit of the V200 camera is that it is rotating. The 180 degree rotation allows the user to turn the camera away to some
one else or towards the user and still have the ability to view the current image on the phone: very smart!

Ringtones and screensavers:

The tones given on the phone are appalling to say the least. They really don?t make you want to receive calls or messages. On the plus side, the sound quality is nice and more tones can be downloaded and saved to the phone memory. The message tones cannot be changed, leaving a circus style intro to every message received. The screensavers included are a nice touch. They are not quite what personal computers have but they are a step up from the original Nokia introductions. Colourful constellations with flashing stars on a pleasant blue background are the highlights of this function.

Usability and Battery Life:

The phone usability is excellent. Menu systems are clear, colourful and guide the user to the area required. The shortcuts on the phone are also facile to use and allow the user to jump to specifically set areas of the phone instantly, such as a new written message or the alarm clock. Battery life is not too good unfortunately. When Samsung invented this phone with all its excellent features they forgot to make sure the battery could stand all the colour and tone usage. With heavy usage the battery is likely to last a day at the most and with moderate usage a few days if you are likely.

Package:

The V200 comes with two batteries, one slim and one standard, which is useful considering the poor battery life: maybe Samsung realised what they had done! A data cable is also included which allows for uploading camera pictures and saving contacts on a PC if the right software is downloaded from the Samsung site (70 MB worth!). The V200 is also a useful tool for combining this software with a laptop and accessing the internet through your chosen network?s internet service provider: useful for receiving e-mails on the go.

Overall:

Overall the phone is magnificent.
It performs as a useful piece of technological kit and there are no qualms on the camera and general phone performance. The only disappointments have to be the abysmal ringtones and the poor battery life, but if you have a wap ringtone site available for free and are home each night, your phone will be a more than essential tool. 

Summary: