Customer Reviews

Samsung U700 Gleam Black Phone (Verizon Wireless, Phone Only, No Service)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My old Nokia, after 4 years of continuous use started to shut off without warning. I did not want to get a new phone, and reviewed sites for hours looking for a good replacement that was free through Verizon. This phone has only one thing I don't like, the tiny caps over the charger bay and the earphone plug--- I'm sure they last longer this way, but they are tiny and can be hard to open.

With that said.. this phone is remarkably easy to set up, easy to use, has a bright easy to ready display and keypad. The bluetooth setup was fast and simple, in fact, set up was completely done, including manual transfer of my address book, in about 30 minutes. I couldn't be happier, great reception, looks good, in a nicely sized package.

I got this phone for my "new every two" plan with Verizon. After using an old phone it was amazing to hear the difference in clarity once I made my first call. It has a nice mp3 player on it and the speakerphone is very loud on the low setting. Plenty of extras and options. Get the case for it though. It is so slim and easy to drop. The camera was a little off center, but not a big deal.

This is a nice slim phone, very classy looking. Light weight and easy to use... Has many neat things like fonts you can change, as well as different sounds for the keypad. The car theme is okay if you are into that but will use lots of battery and you will charge about every other day. Battery life is okay if you turn off the living wall paper, that uses battery power too. I was used to a lot more battery with my LG 8600. Has some cool stuff to play with, the camera is okay but I have had better. No flash but if you maybe need to buy a camera if you want a lot more in that area.

Now that I have pointed out all the stuff I like - let me tell you in 3 weeks I am on my third one of these.... the first one was hard to hear when ringing, the second one would not let me down load get it now applications to get my contact list. It constantly rebooted before allowing the download. This one likes to shut off and reboot also when I am on get it now looking for ringtones because..... you only have 3 bells and 3 ringtones plus the usual verizon tone ... very disappointing.

The speaker in this phone leaves much to be desired, very hard to hear in my purse... so that is why I tried to download ringtones... well that just turned into a nightmare. Finally just gave up when my keypad start losing its sounds... I really think this phone has sound issues.

Called Verizon and they told me to pick another phone I guess they are tired of me trying this phone. After three I think maybe I need to find another. I stayed with it because all in all it is a nice looking phone.
I have small hands and it felt really nice, looked really nice and had some fun stuff, but I think it is time to move on....

I was initially excited by the great reviews and sleek look of the Samsung gleam. I also had high expectations as my previous Samsung phone had lasted 3.5 years without trouble. However, after a week with the Gleam, I am ready to return it. The sound quality is very muffled -- I have trouble understanding what others are saying, and they have trouble understanding me. Everyone has told me that it sounds worse than my previous phone. I'm very disappointed, and surprised that no other reviews mention this problem. It could be my particular phone, but even a Verizon representative told me to try a different model altogether.

I like this phone a lot more then what I had previously. It's sleek, slim, and has great graphics. One complaint that I do have is that I have to open the phone every time I need to check the time on it. Unlike most other phones I ever had, that would display the time on the front LCD by simply pushing one of the keys on the side of the phone. It's more of a convince thing for me. My other complaint would be the battery life. On several occasions I've had at least 2 bars of batter power left on the phone before making a 20 minute call and before I was finished talking I'd have to plug the phone in to keep it from dieing. I'm really not a big phone talker, so I'm surprised what little life this battery has. Perhaps you could save the battery by turning off the animated background, but that's one of the key attractive features of this phone. Anyways, I think I would have bought a different one if I had known these things would be a problem for me.

I've had this phone for about a month now, and I'm starting to get used to it. My biggest complaint is Verizon's lack of support for it. Only one of their ringtone services works with it so far, and the address book backup service isn't supported for this phone yet. I haven't bothered trying some of the other services.

Also, this phone doesn't synch with my Mac, even using third-party software. Hopefully, it's just so new that the vendors haven't caught up yet.

Other than that, it's a fantastic phone. Very lightweight, great reception, wonderful clarity. The camera isn't the best and there's no flash, so taking indoor photos is usually disappointing. But it's a phone, not a camera, so I'm okay with that.

The phone seems alright as a phone, the menus are easy, etc., no particular problems. But I bought this phone (from the many on the Verizon list) because it has a 2GB music player that doesn't require one of those stinking pay download services, like the horrific vcast.

Unfortunately, as a music player it has problems:

1. The cord input is a size down from that used on any decent earphone set, which requires a kludgy stub transition cord (not supplied with the phone).

2. To edit the card requires removing the stubborn battery cover and the battery itself, which is clumsy to say the least, and inexplicable in design. A USB cord (not supplied with the phone) will only work to synch with WMP, and who the heck would use that piece of Evil Empire garbage to work with MP3's?

3. The card is too small, at the same time they put out this phone the chip industry was moving to high capacity mini-cards, and this is a generation behind. Note the 2GB card does NOT come with the phone, but be sure not to buy a high capacity card, you must use the MicroSD card, not the HC, despite what some supplier websites say.

4. The music directory doesn't allow subdirectories, which is really, really, stupid. After some working with a tag editor, jamming all the music together does work, so long as the tags are suitable to your organization. But any kind of mixed playlist can't work in the usual way, just by putting single songs into a directory, creating a playlist and assigning all the songs in the directory to the playlist. Just dumb. Who wrote this software?? Not someone who plays around with MP3's much.

5. The sound is rather flat and hollow.

6. There's an annoying little flap over the jack port. For what reason? To keep grit out or something? Logical to a point, but if I used the port much I probably would just rip it off.

7. The volume rocker is broken up into only a few levels, and naturally one level is too low, the next too high. The volume rocker should be (seemingly) a continuous scale, and progressive. At least give credit to the forward and reverse functions, which do work as they should.

For all these reasons, I bought a Sansa clip, which sounds much better, allows for the usual directory organization, and whose (supplied) USB cable makes it just another drive on the PC. Therefore, I didn't need the music player in this phone at all, and the choice was pointless. My advice is obvious, select the phone if you like it, but forget about the music player except for the odd occasion when you leave your ipod or whatever behind.

I got this phone last November, and it still (as of June) gives a chemical odor, quite noticeable when you open it to the face. I don't know what's wrong with its plastic.

Its MP3 player is a joke. As another commenter said, too, it doesn't understand directories (even though the music is kept in regular FAT filesystem), and to load it you need to use its horrible VCAST program, which, by the way, doesn't work for Limited User account(programmer folks, it's not Windows ME anymore!), and I refuse to give Administrator privileges to my family members, to save me from grief with crapware installation. Or you need to remove the memory card, which is a hassle. Why not make the card accessible through USB as a drive? Other phones can do that.

Its battery only holds about 5 days on standby time.

It also doesn't allow to use a MP3 file as a ringtone. I don't understand why. Is it conspiracy to get the users buy the tones? There is no technical reason. Other phones can do that.

I'm absolutely nuts about this phone, which I got last week. It's lightweight and comfortable to hold, with number keys that are easy to dial because of the size and position. The camera is amazing, with clear images and accurate colors, and even automatically lightens up photos taken in dim light. The sound quality is good. I love the whole set up of the controls for this phone, very easy to navigate. It's also quite flat, making it convenient to carry. I've been making jokes to my friends that I'm madly in love with my cell phone and would marry it if I could! Mine is purple, by the way.

This phone has a very clear sound, easy to hear the person you are talking to. Battery life is weak. Need to check the power level every day and recharge frequently. Not a lot of features, but a nice phone. Small, light weight.