Oh what have I done?!! (Samsung SGH-V200)

Member Name: misspiggie

Product:	Samsung SGH-V200
Date:	05/12/03 (433 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: pretty colour scresn, nice and light, camera

Disadvantages: texting, games

At upgrade time I usually already have an idea of what phone I want, and it's usually the latest tiny Nokia. However, this year, I had no clue what phone I wanted as my 8310 has served me very well despite my liking for dropping it more times than Wilko can drop kick a rugby ball!

Why upgrade then, you may ask? Believe me I am still trying to work that out! I suppose it's because I like the feel of a new phone, and I was not sure how much abuse my 8310 could take. Besides which, Nokia seem to have a strong hold on the mobile phone market, I'm sure they wouldn't miss me for a year!

After comparing the phones available to T-Mobile, I plumped for the V200 because compared to the others available, it was not only tri-band, but it also had a nice colour screen. At first glance, I thought that the V200 was great, though slightly bigger than the 8310, it didn't feel like a brick and I could hold it comfortably in my hand. Besides, the one my Mum had looked pretty neat too.

My initial reaction was that I had made a good choice, and I did like all the settings that I could personalise, like the flashing service lights on the back of the folder part of the phone and the background on the display.

However, less than 4 days with my new phone and it died a death and had to be replaced with a new handset. Not sure what was wrong with it, but I was very close to handing it back and returning to my 8310, but not being a quitter, I persevered........

Though my overall love of my new phone is low, it does have some good features.

I am not going to go through every function on the phone as this could take some time to read, but here are a few highlights......

I cannot comment on the price as it was a free upgrade, but I do believe they retail at over £200.

There are 10 folders on the phone, and for some strange reason, when you press to view the folders, the first folder displayed is the last o
ne, Interactive.

Other than to check the footie scores, I haven't really used this folder, but it seems to contain the standard things, Info services, the ability to chat, and get your horoscopes.

I've never had a camera phone, and that was not the reason for buying this phone, and I haven't found the need yet to use it, but come New Year's I'm sure it will come in handy as I do not intend to take my SLR out partying with me! I have tested it to see how the function works, and I do like it. the camera module swivels around 360 degrees which means that you can take a picture of yourself or use it as a mirror, if need be! You can zoom in on your subject as well as change the brightness, and the camera can be accessed quickly by pressing a button on the keypad, with would you believe it, a camera icon on it!

Yes you can send you the pictures to others, with the correct technology on their phone, but you can also use the pictures as your display background.

I am not overly keen on some of the ring tones but there are enough of them to find one that you can stand, though the V200 does not have composer functionality, you can receive ring tones. As with most phones these days, you can have keyboard tones or message tones set, but the V200 also has a few alert types, for example, lights only, vibration and melody and vibration. The one thing I do not like about the vibration and melody option is that the vibrations start about 20 seconds before the melody starts and if you are anything like me, that gives you about 30 seconds to retrieve my phone from the bottom of my Mary Poppins style bag!

The Alarm functions are great, you could have an alarm going of every hour if you so desired! there is a once alarm, a daily alarm and a morning call. With each alarm type you can set one of the ringing tones as the melody of the alarm. Be careful though, if you tend to leave your phone on at night but like it to be sil
ent, do not use the silent mode (# key) as you won't hear a thing! I tested it one morning by mistake! One plus ? the quick access silent button (hold the # key down).

Now for the all important texting functionality....... Do I not like this!! Promise this will be the last comparison to my darling 8310, maybe, but it is not a patch on it! If you use the predictive option, it does not capitalise the first letter of each new sentence, which as a English teacher wannabe, this can be very irritating. Granted I'm probably going to be using text speak for most of the message, but good sentence structure is a must!

There are 5 'modes' - upper case, lower case, numbers, symbols and predictive. Careful when in predictive mode, as it is on the upper case option as you enter the mode - no one likes a shouter!

I will not be winning any speed texting competitions with this phone. It is also not possible to add new words to the dictionary, so words I frequently use need to be entered in parts every time and then joined together. You can only use numbers in predictive mode if you do not want to use 0. And one bugbear for all Nokia users will be the fact the 'space' key is now on the right and not in the middle. Though I am slowly getting used I would like to be able to send a text in less than a minute again! One plus though, if your text turns into War and Peace, it does let you know where the second message will start and sends them both together. My 8310 couldn't do that, which meant sometimes people get half the message, and text you back before you've finished the second half!

Have Samsung not heard of Business Cards?! If there is a way to send a number in my phone book to another mobile? If there is, can someone please let me know!

I am liking the green handset button very much as it contains a quick redial list which not only contains the numbers for calls you've made, but also for calls you&#
39;ve received and missed.

Where's Snake? And why have 2 very similar flying games? Haven't killed my pet in 16 days though!! Has lasted 9 days longer than the lasts one!

And what about a radio?! I miss that a lot and a must if you commute, and don?t want to dig out your walkman.

OK, writing this has been good therapy as it's made me realise that as much as I love my old phone, this V200 thingy is not as bad as it seems. My heart may be warming to it, but I do not think I will ever be as happy with it as I have been with my Nokias in the past. For a start, one phone call and the juice levels hit rock bottom - what happened to going a week and 50 calls without recharging?!!

This is my first break from Nokia since I forced myself to join the mobile population and I don't think when it comes to upgrading next year I will be staying away from Nokia, the pull is too strong. I would however, like to know what Samsung do to their phones to make them undroppable, it hasn't kissed the floor once - yet!

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