Customer Reviews

Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Unlocked Phone with Quad-Band GSM, 3 MP Camera and MicroSD Slot - International Version with Warranty (Noble Black)

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

 

 

I completely disagree with other reviewer. Once you learn the basic functions of this phone, its as intuitive as any other gadget. And the term intuitive, at least to me, is based on what each person determines it is. Anyways, one of my favorite features of my phone is this has 3 home screens which you can place different widgets on, and scroll to them when you wish. On the main page I have time and date, my secondary I have alarm, music player, and phone mode, and third one I have my fm radio dialer, facebook, and birthday widget. The screen is gorgeous and the colors rival my ipod touch. The camera takes good pictures, and so-so video, but then again I rarely use it for that anyways. You can save either to the phone or the the micro SD card. Another great feature is that while typing text, when you turn it sideways, it automatically changes to a horizontal qwerty keyboard.

There are other great things about this phone, and all-in-all, a very good deal for the cost. Any web capable-video and photo camera-a wide variety of widgets-you'd be hard pressed to find a comparable deal for what this one sells for. A strong competitor if you ask me.

This phone is great. I got to pick it out as a birthday present and I am so glad I chose the right one. I was looking for a touch screen phone with a full qwerty keyboard (the keyboard is touch screen too). I completely recommend this phone.

I think this phone is great! I got it as a gift for my boyfriend and he can't put it down. It has everything you need in a phone and more. Touchscreen works great and it has tons of useful applications. Battery lasts like 5 or 6 days. I can't explain how happy I am with this purchase. My mom already said she wanted the same phone for her birthday and I am giving thought to the idea of getting one for myself as well.

This is a great phone. Camera, music, text and chat. Love it. Works in the USA & the overseas. What else could I ask for.

I have had it for about 2 weeks now,great phone for the price,everything i was expecting.The only disadvantage was that it shuts down now an then,but after i switched it off and cleaned the battery terminals as recommended by the manual,it dint do that again.So not a bad deal at all.Will definitely recommend it to someone else.

July 27th,2011.
This is an update. I've had this phone for more than a year now,does all its suppose to do,screen is quite responsive,not a single issue with it.Fantastic buy!!!!

This product is a disappointment I was looking forward to the touchscreen function for quick operation when dialing up ,selecting a contactperson,screen would lock up.furthermore when useing the keypad and connection was made thsceen went dark although I selected 3 min screen on!

Inserted my AT&T SIM card. Then turned phone on. Saw the T-Mobile logo flash across the screen. Phone displayed message "searching" and it kept searching forever. This phone is locked. I have spent hours researching information on this phone. Unless you want to go through the same routine I am going through, avoid this phone.

Well, phone works great and touch screen was responsive. I bought it unlocked and traveled with it to Nigeria and it worked with all GSM networks. Delivery was fast. The only drawback to it is that the camera did not produce very bright pictures. Probably needs a flash integrated to the phone. The phone easily gets scratches so you might want to buy a case for it. Overall it is a great phone for the price i got it.

Perhaps I'm spoiled, coming from a Nokia phone with its incredible ease of use interface, but this Samsung has been a total nightmare to figure out...and this is me being a longtime gadget geek who usually doesn't even bother to read owners' manuals for anything---TVs, computers, audio equipment, DVD players, MP3 players, VCRs, digital cameras, etc.

This phone gets two stars mainly for its looks---the case and the screen. It seems to have been designed mainly for the bimbo market, people who just want to have a pretty phone in their hands. The owner's manual is a thin and horribly useless joke, most of it is about how to use the web browsing, mp3 player, and camera. Simple basic phone functions, like how to access the keypad during a call (for navigating voice menus) are totally ignored.

In fact, when I first turned on the phone, it was in German---and there is nothing in the damn manual about how to change the language. I had to go to Google Translator and translate each and every icon and menu heading in order to figure it out! At least they could have been bright enough to have the default setting on English, which is after all THE international language!

Similarly, there are no instructions on how to turn off the annoying keypad tones. I just kind of stumbled across it.

I bought this phone mainly for its PDA functions, which are passable at best. I do like that it's much easier to do texting on this since you can get a full QWERTY touch keyboard when you turn it on its side. But overall the basic phone functions are severely neglected and ease of use is abysmal. I will give this phone another couple of days, if it doesn't finally "click" it'll be going back.

UPDATE, 10/1/2010:
Well, I have learned to live with this phone's many quirks and flaws. Which would have been a far easier/quicker process if the damn thing had come with a halfway decent owner's manual, sheesh. So I've changed my rating from 2 stars to 3.

Basically this is a good phone for sending text messages. It is most certainly NOT much of a Palm Pilot replacement, that's for sure. Reception and voice quality are both decent.

One thing that I noticed, and now have grown to tolerate, is how often the buttons and functions lag, especially on the touchscreen---about 2 to 3 times out of ten, you tap an onscreen icon and nothing happens the first or second or even third time, you just have to keep tapping it until the damn processor wakes the hell up and does what it's being told to do. Annoying as hell at first, but oh well, as Dostoyevsky famously wrote (he was in a gulag at the time, lol): "Man can get used to anything." That could well be the motto for this phone, heh.

UPDATE: 8/26/2011
Over a year later, it has held up well and now that I have resigned myself to this phone's limitations, I am finding that it does a passable job of being the PDA replacement that I orginally had in mind. How? Through the built in Calendar, mainly...I am able to make alarmed reminders for myself. That is the main reason I wanted it. Oh and the contacts list is reasonably detailed too, which isn't bad. But the main reason I am giving it a better review now is because I have decided against getting an iPhone, iPad, or even Android phone/pad for at least another year while waiting for that technology to mature and the prices to drop. In the meantime, this Samsung gets the most basic jobs done ok, I guess. Though if I had to do it all over again maybe I would've tried a Nokia, they usually have the most intuitive user interface out there.

This product is advertised as International Version, but it is not really. I bought this phone to send as a gift to my cousin in India. I received a power adapter which is no where close to the switch plugs we have in India. There is no Euoropean switches also. Charger coming with the phone works only in US. However that is not a big issue as we can always buy a Samsung charger in India.
Before sending this as a gift, I wanted to try it and check how it works. This was our first Touch screen phone. We wanted to try on a cheaper phone first before going for some good priced phone. We're impressed with this touch screen phone.

Cons: Power adapter coming with phone is wrong. I thought that this phone has Wi-fi. But it doesn't. It's worth though for the price we payed for this phone. I'm not trying the internet as I don't have data plan here and there is no wi-fi in this phone. My cousin will try internet in India. hope fully it works good. Wi-fi would have been an excellent feature if included.

Pros: Touch response, Battery life, Picture & Video quality, sound quality are all good.