43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great phone!, December 26, 2007
This review is from: Samsung i760 Black Phone (Verizon Wireless, Phone Only, No Service) (Wireless Phone Accessory)
Well, finally a windows based phone, with real key-dialpad outside, full qwerty keyboard, big touch screen... Feature wise this phone has it all that I've ever wanted... real dialing keys were a must for me (hate the soft keys on phones like XV6700, you can never "feel" them and always have to look on the phone to know where to press), full keyboard that you can operate with two thumbs, touch screen (lately there has been a slew of smart phones without touch screens). Everything else typical windows mobile phones usually have by virtue of being windows phones or by virtue of Verizon service (calendar, tasks, office, games, auto-syncing, etc).
To me, its all about hardware of the phone, its useability and performance. Because on the inside, all windows phones are created mostly equal.
This phone has a few minor and major annoyances.
Annoyances:
1) Inability to charge the phone when connected via USB cable. This is annoying two-fold. First of all, because battery is drained faster when the phone is connected to PC, 2nd of all, because phone constantly goes to sleep when its not being charged and thus installation of software can fail unless you keep the phone active (or change power settings temporarely). Obviously, using the phone as a modem for your laptop aint gonna work for long periods of time either.
Thankfully, this major annoyance can be resolved with about $30-40 bucks extra, where one can buy a special crade to charge battery and sync at the same time.
2) No standard mini-USB connectors. A modern phone w/o mini-USB interface in this day and age? I had to buy all new cables for my car, for my work, etc. Annoying!
3) Button placement and stylus placement. One definately has to get used to this. Some of the button placed tend to get pushed more often than they should be...
4) A flap on the power connection. It's bad enough that the connection is not mini-USB, its yet more annoying that the connection is covered with a flimsy-feeling flap that needs to be unhooked and rehooked everytime.
5) Lack of carrying case or pouch or clip. Once again, this can be fixed with extra $$$.
Now, on to the good stuff about this phone, which by a landslide overwhelms the bad:
1) Windows Mobile 6 fixes alot of annoying things that were available in WM5 with older phones. No more random turn-ons, less lockups, alot more options in various software components, etc.
2) Phone is fast.
3) Opening of the sliding keyboard feels solid, snappy, well made.
4) Keyboard has been thought thru well. Keypad works in both states (with opened and unopened keyboard), reset button is easy to reach when needed, keys are easy to press. Overall, nice!
5) Standard and extended batteries are both included! I guess this makes up for the lack of charging usb connection. Extended battery lasts long time. I typically get to the half of the extended battery after 3 days of moderate useage (wireless syncing every 60 minutes, 20 mins of conversation per day, and few hours of playing Bubbles per day)
6) As a phone it performs much better than my previoux XV6700. Obviously, WM6 software is better, but also it definately has better reception vs XV6700.
Overall, my biggest complain with XV6700 and other phones like it, that they were a PDA first and a phone second. Samsung has finally made a PDA Phone that works equilly well as both.
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great PDA *and* Phone, December 5, 2007
This review is from: Samsung i760 Black Phone (Verizon Wireless, Phone Only, No Service) (Wireless Phone Accessory)
I replaced my Audiovox XV6700 PDA Phone and couldn't be happier. The XV6700 was a good PDA but a lousy phone. With the i760 I get the best of both plus a decent MP3 player and camera. I like the ergonomics with the combination of keyboard, phone number pad and the Start / OK / Call / End Call buttons. I have found it easy to adapt to and can do a lot of common actions without ever using the keyboard or touch screen. The Bluetooth and wireless work great. I don't use the keyboard a lot, but when I have found it more than adequate. All in all I am very satisfied.
Here are the things I don't like: 1. No charging through USB (what were they thinking???); 2. 2 GB limit on the micro SD card (which I've been told is a limit of WM 6); 3. I had to upgrade several of my applications to run on WM 6 (Pocket Quicken and Splashdata); 4. I initially had a problem using ActiveSync with USB (worked fine with Bluetooth). It took me a while to find out that I had to disable `Enable Advanced Network functionality' in the USB to PC setting.
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
4.6 stars.... great phone for the correct person, November 25, 2007
This review is from: Samsung i760 Black Phone (Verizon Wireless, Phone Only, No Service) (Wireless Phone Accessory)
All right, I get to be the first to review this! I was lucky enough to be the first in this area to have this phone. It's been about 4 weeks now, living with this device. I've put up with the i-730 for almost three years, what a breath of fresh air. WM6 is great, the device is fantastic with one huge exception (Samsung, hope you read this)... The "end" button to hang up the phone is exactly your thumb rests when you naturally hold the phone with your right hand. I don't know how many times I've hung up on people so far. Please give us a software option to shut this button off. You really don't need it anyway. Otherwise, it's a great phone for people who require/want all the stuff WM6 allows you. Besides the pesky button, I love the phone. (PS, the camera really sucks, but it's a PHONE!)
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