Samsung A670 Phone (Verizon Wireless)

by Samsung

Product Details

Product Manual [12.36mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 3.3 x 1.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000659X16
• Item model number: a670
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #169,340 in Cell Phones & Accessories (See Top 100 in Cell Phones & Accessories)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Samsung A670 handset combines video capture and still imaging capabilities with superior messaging and high-speed wireless connectivity, all in a light and compact wireless device. Picture and text messaging services are also included, as is support for Internet connectivity. It's a great tool for savvy users who want to get the most out of wireless technology.

Design

Click the image to get a closer look at the A670's features.

The phone features a traditional clamshell design with a large 128 x 160 pixels color display with 65,000 colors. A full-color 128 x 96 pixels supplementary display on the outside of the cover displays incoming call information, battery life, signal strength, pictures, graphics and more. A VGA (640 x 480) camera with LED flash is located just above this display. Most of the phone's features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset's backlit control pad. Meanwhile, the top right side of the unit houses an antenna while the charging port is housed on the unit's bottom edge. The phone also features a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets. Up/down keys are located on the left side of the unit for quick volume control.

Calling Features
The A670's built-in address book can store up to 500 contacts for quick and easy management of phone numbers and email addresses. The phone comes with 15 built-in polyphonic ringtones plus a vibrating alert. More ringtones can be downloaded via Verizon's Get It Now service. Ringtones and pictures can be assigned to specific callers so you don't have to look at the phone to know who's calling. The A670 features speaker-independent voice recognition, which allows any user to dial a number by speaking the name of a contact from a phone book, or by speaking the digits of a phone number. GPS location technology pinpoints your exact location when you dial 911.

Messaging, Internet and Tools
The A670 features multimedia messaging with support for sending and receiving picture messages. The handset can receive messages with graphics and sound. When used in combination with the phone's built-in camera, MMS opens up a whole new world of messaging fun.T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.

Getting on the Internet anywhere is easy with the A670, as well. Verizon's optional Mobile Web package allows you to read and send e-mails, exchange instant messages and view your favorite web content on your phone. You can check your e-mail, trade stocks online, compare prices while shopping, access flight information, get movie listings and find directions to the theater.

Verizon's Get It Now wireless download service is also fully compatible with the A670. This pay-per-download service features application downloads, games and productivity tools. You can also personalize your handset with ringtone downloads using the Get It Now service.

The A670 ships with a number of handy tools including a calendar, a to-do list and a voice memo application that can record up to 4 minutes of speech. An alarm clock and calculator are also included.

Imaging and Entertainment
In addition to a 4x zoom, The A670's built-in VGA camera includes a flash-- great for getting good shots in low light situations. Three quality settings let you control how much of the camera's 32 MB of built-in memory is allotted to your photos. The camera also supports video capture-- two 12-second video clips that you can set as your screensaver or program to play when you turn the phone on or off.

The phone also features customizable screen backgrounds so you can make your phone reflect your personality. The A670 is BREW enabled, meaning it supports games written on the BREW platform. Games are available via the Get It Now service.

Vital Statistics
The Samsung A670 weighs 3.8 ounces and measures 3.30 x 1.80 x 1.0 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 175 minutes of digital talk time, and up to 170 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the CDMA 800/CDMA 1900 frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
Samsung A670 handset, AC battery charger, lithium-ion battery, holster, user manual, welcome CD-ROM, quick reference guide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a review for people as exceedingly exacting as me, January 30, 2005

By 

Connie Chun (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung A670 Phone (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)

This dual-band color camera flip phone on the Verizon network is a surprisingly good handset. I was a bit frustrated at having to choose between the 2 Samsung models - one being tri-mode (a650), and the other being dual-mode (this phone, the a670). Those tricksters made the one with the front LCD the dual-mode one. Honestly, who buys flip phones anymore that don't have the front display? There is no way in hell I can go backwards in technology. When the StarTac phone died, so did that whole concept. So of course I bought the A670, and thought I could live without the analog frequency. Also, I've heard that the A650 (which is the tri-mode version) has much worse battery life because the phone is constantly switching between digital or 1xRRT and analog mode, the latter being a total power drain, as is just the switching at all.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this is a great phone with excellent reception, as long as you don't need analog. (I have only owned tri-mode phones up to this point, and I fortunately have not missed the analog frequency at all. I was initially worried about that.) The sound comes in clearly, and I'm told that I sound clear on the other end. Another strong suit of this phone is the form factor and exceptional build quality. Not only do I think it's the most gorgeous phone offered by Verizon, it's also compact, perfectly curved and shaped for pocket insertion, and it's very solidly built. It feels sturdy to hold and use. It weighs a little more than the similar LG and Audiovox models, but it's a difference that you grow to appreciate because it just feels much more substantial.

If your needs stop there, then hold it - you've got yourself a new phone.

For me, there are some irritating points about this phone beyond the basic call-making and form factor. Namely, the software. It's not customizable. It's very rudimentary. For all the effort put into the elegance and construction of the design, you'd think some attention would be paid to the inside.

If you are a text messaging freak like I am, then this phone probably is not the best choice for you. It's not the worst, but it definitely leaves something to be desired. For one thing, the font is terrible. It's like bolded 14 point Courier New. This means that you have to scroll down one line for every word, practically. And there is no way to adjust it either. Another thing is that the key stroke recognition is very slow. Often, you don't realize that the keys you hit didn't register, so you are well on your 2nd or 3rd word when you realize you have to fix the first word. Irritating. Finally, you are able to add words to the T9 dictionary, but it doesn't stay for long. Very curious bug. I don't fully understand what's going on with that, but I know that I've added quite a few curse words, and I've had to re-enter them so many times, and it still doesn't take. Another thing that would make this phone a better SMS-enabled phone would be if the menu offered the ability to send a text message right off of the contact name, rather than having to scroll through the SMS menu to start a message. It would also be great if you could begin composing a message without having specified a destination address. Often I'm thinking of what I want to write without necessarily wanting to scroll through the 9-step contacts menu. The final shortcoming of the text messaging is that you can't scroll up and down lines once you've typed. Whether you press the down, up, left or right buttons, it will only go back and forth word by word. Very annoying if you want to change something at the top of your message. To further annoy you, after a certain number of characters, it stops allowing word-scrolling altogether and you have to go character by character. And you have to keep on clicking over and over again because it doesn't do the smart auto-scrolling when you keep the button depressed. Very, very lame and very, very carpal tunnel-inducing.

One of the small things that I love when phone manufacturers include is the reminder beep. The Samsung A670 definitely has that for SMS and voicemail, which is the most typical offering, but I think it would be great if they borrowed a page from Motorola and added one for missed calls. And make it configurable! Also, when the phone is set on vibrate, it only vibrates the first time when the SMS or voicemail gets sent, but does not offer any reminder vibrations. This is a mistake.

One thing about the ringer setting is that, aside from the global vibrate mode (set by pressing down the # key), the call ringer setting is independent from the SMS/vmail ringer setting. This means that if you only toggle between sound and vibrate, you're fine, but if you wanted the phone to be silent (and not vibrating), then you have to set the call ringers to silent AND you have to go to the SMS/vmail menu to set those ringers to silent as well. It sounds ridiculous, but I learned the hard way that this is absolutely true.

There are several pre-installed professional-sounding ring tones to choose from. It's a sad trend in the industry that phones are coming with fewer (if at all) ring tones that are not songs or chimes. Samsung offers a fair share of annoying tunes, but it's nice that they offer at least 3 actual ring tones that would be acceptable in an office setting.

A cool feature that I discovered is that, as long as you don't have "active flip" set, if you receive a call while the phone is open and you accidentally close it during the ringing, it doesn't hang up that call, like other phones I've had do. You can basically keep opening and closing the phone throughout the ringing and it won't hang it up nor answer it until you deliberately press "answer" or "ignore". Very cool. I've inadvertently closed the phone without necessarily meaning to screen out the call with previous phones. Also, after sending an SMS, I can close the phone right away and it still continues the 'sending' process (which can take about 10 - 15 seconds) - something that has saved me some time. Send it, and fuhget about it! It's a feature that I still wonder how phones ever got away with NOT having.

I also like the fact that the display is very vibrant. There is a power save mode which takes it down a notch, which I find quite nice actually because at times the non-power save mode can be *too* bright. Another power saving consideration is that you have to keep the side button pressed down for at least 2 seconds in order to activate the light on the front LCD. This is nice and avoids overuse of the light when you accidentally just tap it. Some users find it annoying though, that they have to keep it pressed for soooo looong just to get the light to come on. I rather like it.

The battery meter is a bit misleading. There are only 3 bars, and the first 2 bars come down really, really fast. So it seems like the battery life is atrocious. Really, though, the battery life is not as bad as it seems; it's moderate, and that last bar hangs on for quite a long time.

If this phone had speakerphone, it would be a near-perfect phone.

Even though I spent a great deal of time talking about the flaws of this phone, there really aren't phones out there that don't have major software (and hardware) shortcomings. Relatively speaking, this phone's flaws are not that bad. In truth, in terms of call quality and form factor alone, and all in all, this is the best non-PDA phone on Verizon's network and my favorite phone I've owned to date, and considering how many phones I've owned, that is saying quite a lot.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the LG 6100, February 25, 2005

By 

Dan Eppinger - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung A670 Phone (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)

As my wife and I were both eligible for a phone upgrade, we went to our local Verizon store. The two models which seem to be the most popular are the LG 6100 and the Samsung A670. I chose the LG because of the analog possibility and because of the speaker phone. My wife chose the Samsung because it was the smaller of the two phones.
We live about 4 miles from downtown in a semi fringe area. I could not even receive a signal at home with my Motorola 720.(my current phone). I assumed that the problem was with Verizon's network.
Well, we got home and tried out our new phones.
The LG could barely get a signal and dropped my call every few seconds. The Samsung connected easily and never dropped my call. I tried both phones in various areas of my house as well as outside the house. Consistently, the Samsung did fine, whereas the LG was next to useless.
After "playing" with the LG for a while, I realized another annoyance that I could not live with. Both the left and right sides of the phone are lined with buttons.(three to be exact). It is virtually impossible to remove the phone from a pocket or its clip, without accidently pushing one of these buttons. When you accidently push one of these while the phone is ringing , you lose the call and it is sent into voicemail..very annoying. Even if you accidently push the button while the phone is not ringing, the phone beeps and changes the ringer volume.
The Samsung only has two side buttons, both located at the top of the phone. If you grab the phone anywhere except at the top of the sides, you will have no problems. This takes only a couple of grabs to get used to.
Both phones seemed to have equal (and very good) sound quality.
The bottom line is: The next day I returned my LG phone and traded it for another Samsung A670. It is a great phone....one I can easily live with for the next two years.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice and functional, November 9, 2004

By 

SamBK (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samsung A670 Phone (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)

What is important to me in a phone is ease of operation and how long it holds charge in the battery. The battery consumption with this phone is reasonable and I normally put it on charge every 4 days. This is not bad for a phone with color screen and lit up buttons. It is easy to turn off the sound or change the ring to vibration and vice versa. There are quick buttons for that. The front display shows all the information you need without a need to open up the phone. The size is smaller than average phones. I don't care very much about the camera, but I used it a few times and the picture quality is good for a camera phone. You can also assign pictures on caller ID so instead of the number, the picture pops up when you receive call. I think this phone is in general a good choice.

I just have one personal objection to it. I normally use the calendar heavily to remind me and organize me about what I have to do. The organizer in this phone is ok but you can set notifications for at most 1 hour ahead which is normally late. I need to be reminded a day or sometimes a week in advance. This is the only thing that bothers me about this phone.