Customer Reviews

PCS Phone Samsung VI660 (Sprint)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

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I have been a SprintPCS customer for 5 years. Just like many other Sprint customers, I felt Sprint's coverage is poor but the fact that I enrolled early gave me a very good plan. Therefore, what I did in the past 5 years was to consistently scanning for good phones to tackle the poor signal coverage in the area I live.

I've been through Qualcomm QCP-2760, Samsung 8500, Sanyo 4900 and now Samsung VI660. The old Qualcomm had a decent reception in its days but couldn't compare with Samsung 8500. The 8500 was a legendary phone that was solidly designed and built. However, there's more to be desired in terms of its reception. After an extensive research, I bought my wife a Sanyo 4900 when she started her plan. I found its battery life and reception was very good but Sanyo 4900's downside was its bulky design and clumsy menu.

Due to the consistent drop of calls when using Samsung 8500 at home, I was in the market again hunting for the next generation of cell phones that are reasonably priced but have the best reception. Sanyo has been regularly regarded as having excellent reception and battery life, which I could surely testify due to my ownership of the 4900. But I have to say I'm kind of fond of Samsung and its design due to my good experience with the 8500.

The past couple years marked a down period for Samsung though. After 8500, Samsung released many new phones that were viewed as having miserable reception. However, most recently, it seemed like things have changed. VI660 and VGA1000 received new chips and many good reviews come in from their users.

After comparing price and features, I opted for the VI660. I couldn't be happier with its name dial capability. It doesn't need any "training" and can recognize names very accurately. It certainly makes your driving much safer, too. If you use Samsung's earphone, all you need to do to dial a number is all "talk", after you press a button on the earphone cord to intiate the name dial procedures. The maneuver within its menu is very intuitive and the battery life is decent. In addition, VI660 was among the limited number of phones that support SMS. Even though I don't use it that often, it's still a nice feature to have. Maybe I'm not really picky about battery life but recharging once every two days with many phone calls and some web usage doesn't sound too bad to me.

However, the reception of Samsung VI660 is still not to my expectation. It is certainly better than the 8500 and offers a more "unbroken" conversation but I still suffer from dropping call which is less likely to happen to the Sanyo 4900. After so many attempts in keeping my plan by buying new phones, I am considering switching to Verizon even with the nice SprintPCS plan that I currently have. But if you are not living in an area that has poor signal coverage and you don't need a camera or external display, VI660 is truly an economic, feature packed and compact phone for you to have.

I agree with most of the other reviewers here - the Samsung vi660 is a great little phone. I finally upgraded from my beloved but old Samsung SCH-8500, and so far I'm pretty happy with its replacement. Some features I like that haven't really been mentioned on the site to date:

1) When you're charging up the battery, at 90% charge the outside LED light turns from red to green. This may not seem like a big deal, but overcharging the battery over time will eventually ruin its capacity to hold a charge. It makes it easier to see when to unplug it, and hopefully save on battery wear.

2) You can customize the function of the 4 navigation buttons just above the keypad, so with one keystroke you can display the phone book, calendar, calculator (i love this feature!), or even turn on voice dialing.

3) The voice dialing on the phone is nifty. You don't have to 'train' it to recognize your voice. Once voice dialing is activated, you can just tell it to dial by name, by number, or by digit and speak your commands into the phone. If you can never remember your cell number, say "my phone number" and the phone will read it back to you.

4) The phone has ringer volume settings that include vibrate, but it also includes a great vibrate&high volume combination, so whether you're wearing it in a noisy room or its laying on a table in a quiet one, you'll know its ringing.

5) When entering a phone number, the display turns white and shows extra-large digits until the whole phone number is entered, making it easier to see if you've misdialed.

5)When entering to-do items into calendar, memo pad, or task list, the phone automatically starts off in T9 mode (the word-recognition software that lets you enter words by only hitting each button one time).

Just like my old 8500, the Vi660 has a lot of ergonomic little features that make this phone a pleasure to use. It packs a powerhouse of advanced features as well, including the ability to lock the phone and hide the display of certain phone numbers for security. My only big complaint about this phone is that Sprint gives you a user's manual that is 10% user's manual and 90% about touting its PCS Vision services. If you REALLY want to know how to use every little feature, youre going to have to download the PDF file of the manual off their website. All in all, though, I'd say it was a great little phone.

Well, I've had this phone for a little over a week now and so far, it's a great phone. It's a good size, not too big, not too small, fits great in a purse. The menus are really easy to navigate and use. The sound quality is very crisp and clear. I've never had a dropped call and I can get great reception anywhere I take this phone. I even took the phone into both the basement at home and elevators at work and had 2 out of 4 reception bars with clear reception. The phone comes with about 40 different ringers but you can personalize your phone further by downloading ringers at 3gupload.com. The screen is crisp and the colors are vibrant. The keypad lights up to a bright blue whenever you open the phone. Also, a great feature which is not often mentioned is that this phone has a security lock. When set up properly, no one can operate your phone once it's turned on unless they know your secret lock code. Before this phone I had the Kyocera 2255 and that was an awesome phone but I felt that after having it for 2 and 1/2 years it was time for an update. The only drawback to this phone (although this is very minor) is that it doesn't have an external caller ID screen. So you have to flip the phone open to see who is calling. But that shouldn't be a big deal, it doesn't take that much energy to flip open a screen. Besides, remember the days when external screens didn't exist? We all survived that back then ... I don't see why we can't survive that still. Overall, this is a great phone and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a small camera-less flip phone.

I bought the VI-660 because it is one of the few Sprint PCS phones to not come loaded with junk like cameras, PTT (Push to talk) etc. I wanted a new phone that had a long battery life, was as small as possible, and looked good and worked well. The VI-660 has lived up to my expectations, providing very good battery life, nice size and a very nice appearance overall. Sound quality is good (although when the signal is weak I notice some quiet high pitched noises in the background), and it tends to hold a signal quite well (hey, it's CDMA -- none of that GSM garbage!). I also would have liked an external LCD, but this is the best no-frills Sprint phone available right now.

I bought this phone for my daughter, and it was very inexpensive with a 2-year contract. Knowing that, we didn't expect it to do much more than her now year-old Kyocera does. I was so surprised to see all the great features it does have! Voice-activated dialing, color screen, very convenient small size, text-messaging capabilites, monthly scheduler/calendar with alerts, calculator, downloadable ringtones, screen savers, games, applications, and so much more! Around here, it does get fairly good reception, although there are times calls may sound quiet or a little fuzzy. This problem usually only lasts a few seconds at most, and we've never dropped a call. Probably the worst thing about this phone is its short battery life. Still, she uses the phone all day and just recharges at night while she's sleeping, and that seems to be fine. Overall, this phone is a great deal with a lot of special extras you can enjoy! Have fun!

I was at the end of my rope with T-Mobile. I know everyone seems to have their own horror stories with various carriers, but T-Mobile had really ticked me off.

So, I was in the market for my THIRD cell phone in a year. I was most unhappy with my first two phones (a motorola C223 & a samsung R225), the samsung was decent enough, but it seemed to be ancient by the time the new year rolled around. I decided to get service with Sprint, and noticed this phone was about $30 after rebates. It didn't have a camera, but frankly, if I want to take pictures, that's why I have a digital camera.

I got the phone, and the only thing that cheesed me was that it didn't come with a hands-free set (my first two phones both came with one). Other than that, the phone is exactly as described. I've had it about 4 months now, and no problems whatsoever. The reception isn't the best, but it's certianly nothing to complain about.

There are several small things I dislike about this phone. The retractable antennae is very delicate, and i've already almost broken it off. They probably have billions of these lying around, and will charge you 10 bucks to replace it. Also, it's a flip phone, and when it's closed and ringing there's no way to tell who it is. A LCD on the outside (like most flip phones have) would've been nice to display the time, or even the phone number. The number buttons are pretty small, but I am a big guy, and I seem to have this problem with each phone I buy.

The Samsung 660 is a solid phone, I've dropped it several times, and though it has some small exterior scratches, it's a much tougher phone than other models I've used.

The battery life is very good. I've brought this on trips, and as long as I keep my usage to a minimum (2-3 calls a day 4-10 minutes a piece), the battery will last 2-3 days on a single charge. I've found when I talk for 2-3 hours a day, the battery will need charging at the end of the night.

Overall, I would highly reccommend this phone to someone. It's a basic no-frills phone with no bells & whistles, just consistant good call quality and long battery longevity.

I bought this phone in December '03 to replace an aging Sanyo phone that had Sprint service. For the price this phone is great, I wasn't interested in getting a phone with a camera because I have a digital camera that is normally with me that I would rather use that a low-quality mobile phone camera. The voice activation works great, there is absolutely no programming and it is built right into the phone there is no additional charges from Sprint to use it. Battery life is fairly good, especially since I work in an area that fades back and forth from digital to analog coverage. Overall, very easy to navigate and setup.

I give this phone two and a half stars. I bought the Samsung 660 b/c I wanted a lightweight phone with no camera (I was told by the Best Buy guys that the camera takes up extra battery life even if you don't use it). I still wanted the Vision capabilities, however, so I could download my own ringers and screensavers. So, this phone seemed to match up with what I wanted, and in features alone it does.

Another Amazon reviewer said that Sprint users have to pay extra for voice dialing--that is incorrect. You access the voice dialing by pressing the left blue button on the square keypad (next to the "OK" button). You can do voice dialing or numeral dialing. It's really cool.

Also, I called Sprint about the downloaded ringtones "expiring" after 3 months, and the rep told me the ringtone only expires in your Download Inbox account. So if you download the song to your Download Inbox and then upload the song onto your phone within 3 months, the song is on the phone permanently.

But I am really annoyed about my reception problems with this phone. My previous phone--a Sanyo 4900--was stolen, so I needed to get a new phone right away. I think I should've stuck with Sanyo b/c I never had the reception problems with Sanyo that I do with Samsung. Nearly every day a call gets dropped, normally when I'm in my apartment. But calls were never dropped in my apartment on my Sanyo! Also, sometimes people call me and their voices sound garbled, like they're under water. I have to move around to a different area in order for their voices to come in clear again or hang up and call the person back. Other times the caller's voice sounds "fuzzy" and I can't understand what the caller is saying.

I wasn't able to find a Sanyo with the clamshell design I wanted *without* a built-in camera, so that's why I went with Samsung. But I think I should've considered the Sanyos more just to have decent reception. Oh well, in eighteen months Sprint told me I'll qualify for another rebate and can upgrade my phone. Sigh.

If you remember the old 8500's, then this phone will seem familiar. The A400 and A460 both strayed away from the 8500 design, but this phone is a welcome return to the simplicity that made the 8500 such a hit.

This phone is nothing special. It doesn't have a camera or anything like that. It comes with a lot of ringers and such, but anything you download, you pay for usually on a 3 month basis. It's not worth it.
There is no front display but you adapt quickly. As is the case with all Samsung flip phones, it gets hot and the battery doesn't last long. If you charge every night and don't talk a lot, this will never be a problem. As far as heat, it's nothing unusual. The service is fine. I've had no problems.
The voice memo is back. That's extremely useful once you get the hang of it. The alarm clock is far more functional. But the thing I like the most on this phone is the voice dial. It is far more functional than the crude voice dialing on the 8500 and the spiffed up voice dialing on the A460. The voice dial is a feature of the PHONE and is not the Sprint Voice Command service.

My only real gripe with the phone is that the phone book is so feature rich that it's not easy to use. It's easier for me to voice dial someone than navigate my phone book. Another gripe is that phone calls sound somewhat tinny, like the other person is standing in a big empty room. I noticed this on the first day, but quickly grew used to it.

Pros:
1. Better, functional voice dialing.
2. slim design
3. Voice memo is back, lots of features
4. Plenty of downloadables if you're into that.
5. Launch pad buttons are programmable!

Cons:
1. Over featured phone book
2. No front display!
3. Typical short battery life with all Samsung flips
4. tinny, hollow sound during phone calls

Undocumented features:
1. Menu button pages down lists, and the volume up and down also pages up and down through lists.
2. During a call, if you hold down the "back" key, the time and date will pop up on screen.
3. The center button of the launch pad pressed without holding down is the same as the OK button.

Overall, if you're just looking for a decent cell phone, this will do. If you want features and options and a camera and other frills, buy another phone. This phone will mainly appeal to people who remember the old 8500's and people who don't want a fancy phone, but don't want a piece of garbage either.

This is the 4th Samsung I've owned and I must say that the company continues to amaze me. While this may be a lower-end model compared to what else is out (camera and video phones), it is packed with features that make it a pleasurable phone to use and I would recommend it to anyone. The operating system is far improved from the SPH-500 I had before this, but I still don't know why a "camera menu" is an option. I can only remember one dropped call - the first day I had it. Regarding Sprint's service levels, I have always been satisfied with them. Although a typical wait time is 5 minutes when calling, their friendliness and prompt resolution makes up for it. As for downloads, so what if Sprint charges? There are plenty of other sites out there that allow you to download material for free or at a fraction of the cost. Myphonefiles.com offers unlimited downloads for $3 a month or $29 a year. Overall, I am totally satisfied with the Samsung VI660 and its capabilities.