Customer Reviews

Samsung E715 Phone (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

1) Battery life improves after the first few charges. My first charge lasted 48 hours with minimal usage. My third charge lasted just over 4 days with about 90 minutes of total talk time and about a dozen pictures taken. So be patient.
2) It took me forever to figure out that if you want to take pictures with the lid closed, you have to hold the camera button on the side down for a few seconds.
3) EasyGPRS is the software you want to use to link up the phone to your pc. You can download your photos, call lists, phonebook, etc., or upload new backgrounds, ringtones. The data cable is pricey, I use the IR port on my laptop to connect.
4) I got the samsung leather case for the phone. I dont think I'm going to use it often. When its on, it causes the flip to not close nicely, and it has a plastic cover over the external screen and camera, so camera shots come out even more blurry. But the case looks nice otherwise, and I'll probably cut the plastic part that is around the camera.
5) I dislike most of the built in ring tones. They sound great technically, but there arent much in the way of discreet rings for the office. Most free ringtones on the internet are conversions of pop/hip hop songs, and are also inappropriate for a workplace. On the plus side, you can use mms for ringtones, so you can get mp3 type versatility for your ringtone.
6) Hold the volume button down a second or so while closed and the flash light turns on.

Dont be fooled by the fact I gave this phone 4 stars. Its the best phone I've ever owned. There are lots of little flaws that everyone else has mentioned already. But I think its the perfect format (flip phone, no external antenna), small, and extremely attractive. The only other TMobile phone I would consider is the Motorola V300 (V500/600 coming next year).

I was looking at some of the reviews on here and wanted to clear some things up:

You CAN set different rings for different users. You can also set different graphics to display on the front screen when they call. Simply go to the Caller Groups/Friends list in Phonebook, and set your preferences there.

The fact that the phone doesn't set the timezones automatically is a wonderful feature for me. I can choose exactly what time I would like to have. For instance, I can set the clock ten minutes ahead, as I hate being late.

The ringtones don't really bother me.

I get wonderful reception.

I am often drawn to aesthetically pleasing devices, and this is one of them. The light indicator in front is a great feature. You can also mess with that so it changes for different modes.

The zoom on the camera is O.K.

The flash is wonderful. Love the voice memo function too.

I've dropped the phone on numerous occasions due to clumsiness and it's just fine. (Phew)

The flash also serves as a flashlight that stays on for about 15-25 seconds. Great when trying to find your way in the dark, or keys...

I do wish there was video on this phone.

Is it too much to say that overall, I love this phone?

This phone is probably the coolest looking phone out there, and there's precious few sacrifices made with it. The internal antenna gives me pertty good reception, for T-mobile (San Diego, CA). The camera is just about the best I've seen in a mobile phone. It has adjustable brightness, and a zoom feature (of questionable quality). The best part is that if you have a laptop or other computer with an infrared port, you can use the free software available on Samsung's website (EasyGPRS) to move pictures off the phone, and upload wallpapers and ringtones to the phone, without paying WAP charges. So far, I've been totally happy with the battery life, but then I'm not snapping pictures three hours a day, or expecting it to go for weeks without recharging. The external display is a blue organic LED, not color. It's not a downside-- the signal strength, clock, and battery icons are always on and lit-- also helps finding your phone in the dark. The main part of the external LED is used for an analog or digital clock which stays on for an adjustable amout of time after closing the phone, and as a grayscale viewfinder for using the camera in self-portrait mode. Photos attached to the caller ID don't show up on the outside, just the text caller ID. Overall, a great little phone for GSM 900/1900 use.

Regarding a couple of things I saw in other reviews: Yes, the battery life is short on the first couple of charges. This is mentioned in the manual, and isn't uncommon for Li batteries that have sat around for a couple of months. Just charge it up all the way, run it until the battery warning goes off (sounds like a doorbell chime), charge it up all the way, and you'll be fine.

The IR port: it can't talk to other phones or PDAs. It can (and does) work with the IrDA port on a Win2k or WinXP machine, and Samsung's easy GPRS software. You can use it to upload 128x128 pixel images for wallpaper, upload ringtones (I've uploaded a number of .mmf files, all work just fine), and download pictures from the camera to the PC. You can also use it as a modem, letting your computer access the net using the GPRS system-- note that unless you have the unlimited GPRS plan, you'll pay by the MB. Still, kind of nice to be able to check your e-mail from anywhere.

Pros:

Stylish, lightweight, seems pretty durable
Excellent internal and external screens
Super-easy connectivity without shelling out for a data cable (if you have IrDA on your computer)
Very customizable ringtones and wallpapers
Best phone-camera I've seen so far

Cons:

Slight buzzing noise when using the phone in a very quiet place, nothing major
Reception so-so (but that's more T-mobile than the phone, I think)
The phone comes with NO decent ringtones, if you don't want a song or the t-mobile jingle, you'll want to download a "normal" ringtone right off the bat. Some of the more annoying ringtones use the three-color LED on the front to make your phone look like a disco. Yech.
Not a tri-band, so it can't do GSM 850/1800 regions
Default settings "out of the box" seem to be designed to annoy you and everyone around you (loud t-mobile jingle ringtone, loud keypad tone, annoying flashing leds indicating service, ugly T-mobile/Catherine Zeta-Jones wallpaper).
Everybody wants to play with your phone, which can get annoying ;)

No problem with phone, it works great.

If you are thinking about buying more than 1 phone from Amazon then switching to family plan as they suggest you can do, beware the following:

Amazon claims it doesn't matter which plan you purchase at checkout since you will be switching it to family plan when you get your phones. Not true.

T-Mobile starts your account on the day they get the activation request from Amazon. In my case, they started my plan on September 9 and I didn't even get the phones delivered until 9/14. I activated my phones when I received them and switched immediately to the family plan, no problem. BUT I had to pay pro-rated fees for the plans I purchased with the phone from 9/9 to 9/14. This amounted to $6.67 per phone - PLUS I was hit with all the state and federal fees for those pro-rated plans in addition to paying them for the family talk plan.

So when Amazon says it doesn't matter what plan you pick if you are going to switch to family talk plans, they don't know what they are talking about.

My last phone was the AWESOME Samsung S105; a full featured phone that I miss..but not too much. The Samsung E715 is certainly better, especially the screen quality.

Pro's:
1. Great design and good build quality
2. External display
3. Flashlight feature with LED external light that is also used as the camera flash
4. Fairly quick internet connection with T-Mobile service
5. High quality head phone

Con's:
1. When closing the flip phone during a call it doesnt disconnect for a few seconds so if the other party starts to say.."wait hold on a minute"..it in effect gives the impression that you've heard them and then choose to disconnect them. Trust me this has happened several times. It's annoying.
2. The camera makes this ANNOYING and LOUD snap shot noise when taking a picture. It's due to regulatory requirements in Korea so it cannot be turned off or lowered. Very annoying.
3. The battery life is hardly that good. Buy a car charger. They are only about twenty bucks.
4. There are ZERO "regular" ring tones; ie - a "ring ring" or a "buzz buzz". Most are odd ball tones and songs that sound immature for anyone not in highschool. However, T-Mobile offered to credit me back for the cost of downloading one off the net.
5. You cannot assign ring tones to specific callers; something that was offered on the S105. This is by far the worst feature I belive. Now I have to run to look at my phone every time it rings if it happens to be in another room at home. Before I could "hear" who was calling by the tone that was assigned to that caller.

Over all I love the phone and think Samsung did a great job at designing this one.

I bought a $15 USB data cable off of EBAY and downloaded the free GPRS software from Samsung.com. With those, it is incredibly easy to transfer (with no extra cost) pictures from your phone to the computer, your phonebook to and from the computer, ringtones to the phone (GPRS software even gives you like 20+ free ringtones), wallpapers to the phone, and apparently (I haven't tried this) if you sign up for the unlimited internet access you can connect your computer to the internet at 56Kbps.

I love this phone. The camera quality is definitely not perfect, but by far the best I've seen. It has zoom and flash features that work really well. I've been able to take decent enough quality pictures to use for listing items on ebay.

I bought this phone for $50 off of here w/ rebates, and the only complaint I have at all is that T-Mobile will lead you to believe that this phone comes with the AOL Instant Messenger software installed on it. This isn't true. There's 4 digit codes that you send all of your "Instant Messages" to like you are text-messaging and everything having to do with AIM comes in like a text message. Its easy enough to use though.

Other than the battery life, which actually seemed to improve after the first couple of times, I've had no problems whatsoever with this phone.

I had the Samsung V205 and then I decided to try the E715 out. FYI to people with battery problems, with these kind of batteries, you must let it drain completely and then charge it.. kind of like building up your battery life and doing this a few times, it will improve your battery life immensely. I've been a T-Mobile customer for a while now and I stay with them because: 1) They are now no. 1 in customer service, 2) Great rate plans, 3) It works great where I need it the most!

Now the additional features that the V205 didn't have that this little gadget has is:
1) Caller ID pics.. although you won't be able to see it on the external display, when you flip it open, you'll see that person's face.
2) The camera now has a flash as well as a zoom. And with that, it is able to take pictures in gray (black and white), negative, sepia, and sketch. Also, you can do multi-shot with this as well as put lots of different kind of frames to your pictures.
3)You can download games with the E715 whereas you cannot do so with the v205. Furthermore, the games are actually java with E715
4) The flash can also serve as a flashlight. Which is quite useful sometimes when you don't know where you're walking and the light is pretty bright.
5) Voice memo.. nuf said

Otherwise, it has the usual features. It has an alarm, calculator, calendar, to do list, MMS, SMS, you can download ringtones (which is a big help since some of the ringtones sound pretty crappy), as well as games and pictures. Pretty much all the usual stuff is in this phone.. except you won't find bluetooth on this.

Another thing is that the external display is like a blue-green thing against a black background.. which is pretty cool since you won't have to press a button just to see the time... it's always lit up so you can see it well. Also, the pictures that you can take by lookin at the external display will be a bluish-green color but when it's saved, and you look at it, it's in full color so no worries there.

Overall, I have enjoyed this phone and no problems with it really. Another great thing is that it doesn't have an annoying external antenna to get in the way so it's a good buy.

I bought this phone a week ago and have been almost completely satisfied.

Depending on one's area, of course, the reception is as good as any other phone I've used, albeit that is not many.

The camera is fun as long as you don't expect the same quality of pictures you would get from even a lower end digital camera. This is no complaint - it is a phone; the camera is just a perk.

Menu navigation is set up to be quite simple with everything in close reach. Shortcuts (which are customizable) make getting to the most commonly used functions a snap.

I use text messaging like crazy. The last phone I had was a Motorola with the iTAP predictive text and I had grown so accustomed to it that I was hesitant to switch to a phone that used T9, the other (perhaps more commonly used) program for predictive text typing. I had used it before on another phone and wasn't very fond of it.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that this phone, with T9, was by far the best I had used for typing text messages. The vocabulary is larger than that of my last phone and the BEST part about it is this: If there is a word that one uses (especially if used often) that isn't in the phones vocabulary, one can very easily add it so that for all future uses the phone will know the word one is writing. It is great!

Using the infrared port to syn with my laptop has been almost perfect. It is an easy way to manage and back up my phonebook and to transfer new ringtones to my phone (which, I have discovered, can be found for free and in ABUNDANCE at http://www.free-polyphonic-ringtones.tv) as well as pictures to and from the phone.
The pictures from the phone to computer, however, have caused me some trouble. I purchased the data cable (and soon returned it) and found that after some use, the included program would crash when trying to download pictures from my phone to the computer - using either the cable or the infrared. I think it is a software problem and will hopefully be fixed soon.

Aside from that the phone is beautiful and I love everything about barring one other point I should bring up:
No matter what sound setting (ring, vibrate, no ring, volume down, etc) I have it on, when I take a picture there is a loud camera shutter sound. As far as I know there is no way to remove this short of altering the firmware programmed on the phone. It is annoying and prevent the taking of pictures on the sly, but it can be lived with.

I hope that this has been of help.

That's the reaction everybody has when they see this phone.

Flip it open, and the display is not only detailed, it's BRIGHT! Yet it's standby and talk time are outstanding.

The inobtrusive built-in camera is actually useful (VGA resolution) even in low light conditions. For really dark scenes, it has a white-light LED that illuminates the scene briefly. I find myself taking all sorts of snapshots that I could never take before because the phone is right there by my side. (My digital cameras are often put away somewhere and only dragged out for expected photo ops.)

The ringtones are startling; the birds chirp convincingly; the bells ring with scintillating clarity; there are even some short passages with the human voice. Listen to the ringer just once and you will wonder why you've been listening to those annoying buzzes on your old phone for so long.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Reception and voice quality are at least equal to the best I have heard to date (Siemens S46). Buy this phone. It has no equal.

I am a cell phone junkie. This is my 11th phone in 2 1/2 years. Among my most recent phones were the Samsung S105, the Nokia 3650, and the Sony Ericsson T610. The Samsung E715 was the first phone I bought at first sight. No thought was necessary, I had to have it.

First of all, the price on this phone is entirely adequate. On release it's cost is lower than the 3650 and the T610, and this phone is vastly superior. The screen and camera quality are absolutely brilliant and unrivaled. The flash is decent and beats any other phone that has a "night mode". The flash really makes taking pictures in low light possible. The quality of day time photos is superb. The camera on the 3650 was pretty good, while the SE T610's camera was worthless. With this phone, I will absolutely use it on vacations to take pictures. Based on the amount of pictures I have on it all ready, I'm guessing I'll be able to hold 60 pictures using the super fine and largest size selections. This may not seem like a ton of room, but the fact that it is so easy to email pictures from the phone, the memory is adequate.

The screen quality is absolutely brilliant and is the best I've ever seen, bar none! You will be utterly amazed when you open the flip and see the vibrant and stunning color display.

The external display is awesome as well. The digital clock, battery indicator, signal strength indicator, and other indicators (message, alarm, silent, etc - if necessary), remain on at all times. it's nice to just pull the phone out of your pocket and be able to check the time, see if you have a message, or missed a call, without having to hit any buttons.

The RF beats the three previous models mentioned above, hands down. Where my T610 wouldn't even get a signal, calls on the E715 are crystal clear. I have not had one call (in the past week since I've had this phone) that has had anything less than stellar sound quality. So, the previous reviewer was incorrect in saying the enternal antenna was a mistake.

The ring tones on the E715 are louder than the S105 - so Samsung has corrected that problem. The only problem is that there is not a standard ring tone, which is a bit frustrating, but it's a small complaint.

The flashlight is another added bonus. I'm constantly walking through a dark apartment at night, so that the light doesn't shine under my roommates doors. Well, the flashlight has proved to be really helpful.

People gripe about the lack of bluetooth and voice activated dialing I have never used bluetooth and voice activated dialing has proved to be too much of a hassle for me. It takes forever to set up and doesn't always work correctly anyways.

It's a great phone and well worth the price. No phone will create the "WOW" factor that this one does. Everyone who has seen my phone has gushed over it. It's the classiest, most stylish phone I have ever seen, and it has the performance to back up it's beautiful looks.