Customer Reviews

Samsung X427M Phone (AT&T)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I've used this phone for 1 month. I like it so far.
Pros:
1. The battery life is good. One charge lasts 5 days for me. I don't talk much though.
2. This phone does not come with good ringtones. But you can buy one with average $2 from Cingular or Samsung website. Samsung's Samsung Fun site also has a few free ringtones.
3. The reciption and the charging time are acceptable.
4. People in the phonebook can be assigned to different user groups, and each group can have its own ringtone set.
5. Just dial "1" to connect to your voicemail box. Pre-set for me, at least. You can set yourself too.
6. Hold on "#" to turn the whole phone in silent mode, an easy thing to do before a meeting. And the same action brings all previous settings back.
7. Speed-dial list is seperate from the phone book. My previous phones are like the first 9 numbers in the phone book are speed dial numbers. This phone is like you can pick a person/number from your phone book to fill in a speed-dial position.

Cons:
1. No camera, if that's what you want. I don't need that though.
2. You have to open the clip to see the time. And the time is in small font, unless you select "Digital Clock" wallpaper.
3. Not related to this phone though, customer support guys in Cigular are mostly not very knowledgeable. Don't ask them questions other than your plan or bill.
4. The big Cingular GPRS connection button is quite annoying, if you are not going to use this phone to connect to the internet. The review below about setting it to an unexisting profile is gold. Detailed steps: Menu -> My MEdia -> MEdia Net -> Settings, pick those unset ones, like "Profile4 Info", and Select.
5. Once a phone is fully charged, there is no message like "Charge Completed".
6. You can not set individual alerts. Like I don't want to hear the annoying alert when a batterying is running out, but I do want to hear an alert if I get a text message. No, I cannot do that. I have to turn all alerts off.
7. No IR port.
8. The earphone has some contact problem. (Maybe only mine.)

Because my wife absolutely loves flipphones (I hate them), I got this phone for her on a Cingular Family Share plan. To me the phone seems cheap, but it does have a nice color and the buttons are very easy to press. The screen is also very bright and easy to read. The ringtone quality is OK, but a lot better than my cheap Nokia 3586. The phone does feel a bit fragile and it seems like it can't take one drop with out breaking. But for the most part the phone gets the job done, no extra features, but what do you expect for one of Cingular's cheapest phones? You can download ringtones for it if you desire. I am not into downloading ringtones, but my wife loves it. One thing I do suggest though is going into the internet settings and move the settings from express profile, to a profile that doenst have the login and passwords already stored. By doing this you prevent any accidental connection to the internet. The middle button is so easy to fat finger and press and that button's sole purpose is to connect you to the internet which can cost some serious $$$ if you unknowingly leave it on. By moving from the express profile to another one, whenever you accidently press the internet button, you will just get an error saying, "Service Not available", in other words, you can't connect to the internet and you won't be charged for accidental connections. I think that it was purposely made like this so they can get money from accidental connections, but good thing you can prevent that from happening.

My last service was with MetroPCS and depsite it having unlimited talk time anytime, $52.08 was entirely too much to pay for crappy service that only works in Atlanta. I was lucky to get one bar while sitting at my second floor cube at work. In the elevator, the phone would just say "Serching for service.." Did I mention the dropped calls? I stopped using the phone because in the rare instances where the call wasn't dropped, I couldn't hear the other person on the other side half the time anyway. My Metro phone's battery was dead at least 2 weeks before I decided to go to Cingular, and I never even bothered charging it up. Cingular's service is miles ahead of Metro, full bar strength most everywhere I go, and even 3 bars in an elevator! I can actually hear the other person on the phone and don't have to worry about important calls being dropped because of poor signal strength. Plus Cingular has rollover and unlimted mobile to mobile and free nights and weekends. I don't use the cell that much, so my 850 minute plan Family share plan may be overkill, but with my wife's phone on my plan its the same price (59.99 + 9.99 additonal line) as the family share 600 minute plan (49.99 + 19.99 additional line), so why not get the extra 150 minutes? Cingular Customer service occasionaly does have you on hold for a long time, but for the most part their reps are very friendly and helpful, unlike MetroPCS.

I highly recommend Cingular, the phone is your own personal taste though. It gets the job done, but thats about it.

I got this phone as a replacement for my venerable and trusty Siemens S46. I'll comment solely on -the phone- and not on the service (which has been fine).

Good points:
- Fantastic screen
- Good to excellent reception
- Fairly simple menu navigation* (note caveats below)
- Included applications, media, games, etc. are high quality
- Very thin and light, even with battery
- Excellent battery life (5-7 days on standby)

Bad points:
- The button configuration on this phone is very strange - maybe this is just due to the Cingular configuration, but I keep thinking the largest button (with the Cingular logo) should be "Dial" by default, when instead it is inexplicably mapped to flip over to GPRS mode.
- The phonebook lookup is -awful-.
- There is no copy to/from SIM card feature. This means that if you want to, say, copy phonebook entries without buying the USB cable, you have to enter them by hand.
- The headset jack is very hard to open and suffers from a loose connection and static.
- The keys have no raised dots to center yourself without looking at the phone - while hard to describe, this makes it very hard to dial the phone with one hand, something which I have been able to easily do with most other phones.

I got this phone for my daughter as an added line on family plan(free from Cingular, because I bought the Motorola V551 from Amazon as the main phone line), and it is perfect for her use(she is 15.) Seems solid, very very lightweight, nice bright screen, good sound, and better signal than my motorola! The battery life is EXCELLANT! My motorola burns out before a day is over, hers goes for days. However, very litte features, which is ok for someone like her. No camera of course, but she didnt want one. Not very customizable. Cant change what is assigned to the buttons(like I can on my phone) and I hate how the middle and the right arrow buttons connect to media or the internet. I put an internet block on her phone from Cingular(customer service), but she was still able to access the media mall and was browsing ringtones before I realized, and made her stop! The data transfer costs!Comes with a few games, mine had one demo game. More wallpaper choices than mine as well. Cant view who's calling or the time from outside of phone when closed. We set the option to not answer when opened, so we arent answering calls we dont know who it is first. All in all, pretty nifty phone, simple, easy to use, one touch to write a text message, and other simple menu features.Buttons are flat, as are mine, but if looking at it(to type text message) not a problem, but if in a prompt command on a call, have to move it from ear to see what numbers I am pressing. All accessories are cheaper here at Amazon versus anywhere else.

I like the big screen.
Great color.
Great sound.
Sturdy.


I think this phone is quality. I like it.
I don't like the fact that it doesn't have a speaker phone but it's a good phone and I wouldn't change it.
-correction, if you go through Cingular, you can get voice activated dialing. However, are you too lazy to just dial the number or use the phonebook? Besides, they charge for that and it's just not worth it.

I've had it for about six months, and it's been a good phone. I haven't had any issues with it. Battery life is fairly well, sturdy. I was told that you can never ever drop it in water or get it even a little bit wet. Several people I know who own this phone have told me they ended up replacing it.
Now, if you want to find a phone that is very sturdy, check out Siemens. I washed one through a full cycle and it still works!
Again-do not submerge in water. Do not drop while raining. Do not use while raining. Do not use with wet hands, whatever you do, keep water away from this phone. It may still work, but there could be issues with this phone once it is wet, and you'll want to replace it.
If you are seriously looking for a phone that will last, check out Siemens. Ecspecially the blue/silver one that T-Mobile has. It worked after going through an entire wash cycle. Just used a blow-dryer and a dry sock and it was like new! :)

I have the Samsung X427M and a plan with CINGULAR. I have had a few phones in the past on my cingular plan and this phone is, by far, the worst. If you cannot hear the person you are talking to on the other end and they cannot hear you, what good is the phone?

If I could give this item 0 stars, I would. Cingular needs to revamp its network and test the phones it carries.

Jon

Total, utter, complete junk. Trash. Rubbish. Garbage. No one can EVER hear me on the phone, its always "hey man, you're cutting out" even when the damed thing shows 6 bars! And I live in NYC/North Jersey area where there's a million towers. This is the lowest quality piece of trash I've ever owned. Avoid it at all costs. I just called Cingualar today (11/28/05) and they've had many complaints about this model's recpetion, etc., they're sending me a brand new Nokia 6102 for free, as this piece of crap was still under warranty. The warranty rep at Cingular told me its a problem w/ the phones software- apparently Samsung didn't mfg. the phone to the right specs or something. Good riddance, I'll never purchase another Samsung product for as long as I live after putting up w/ this thing for 4 months.

I got this phone as part of a rebate deal, trading in my trusty T-mobile service (and venerable black and white Motorola V66) for this shiny colour phone with Cingular's "More bars in more places" network.

In both regards I've been disappointed.

The Samsung x427m phone, first of all, does not come with an earpiece. This fairly inexpensive addition would have added tremendously to it's usefulness, and assuaged fears about radiation (see below).

The phone has a tendency to interfere with speakers; I can only guess that it emits more radiation, such that it provides sufficient signal to drive the speakers. As it stands, it is aesthetically a minor annoyance to hear the speakers buzz occasionally when you bring it within 10 feet of a speaker, but the hidden health problems could be more serious. I am sure it is within the legal limits for radiofrequency emissions, but it still a little disconcerting nonetheless.

You would think with increased emissions you would get better signal quality, but that is not the case here. Roughly 10% of my calls have to be redialed because for some reason or other the reception is so poor I can't make out what the other party is saying. Occasionally my voice gets so distorted over the phone that my friends cannot recognise my voice.

The phone itself is not particularly user-friendly. It is not simple to save a number to the phone if someone dials using a new number to you. The number shows up, but there is no option to simply "add" the number to your phonebook. You need to retype it in to add it under an existing or new entry.

The ringtones are either annoying or barely audible. I have missed quite a few calls because my phone was in a jeans pocket, and the material absorbed the sound. If you listen carefully though the music is quite nice.

There are some good points about the phone. The games are quite neat; the chess is way too easy, but otherwise the games are quite playable. The battery lasts for quite a long time; it'll probably last 5 days with light use. The phone feels pretty solid and I've dropped it a few times without much consequence.

Overall though this is a phone to give to your school-age kids. It won't make too much noise to disrupt classes, as you can muffle it with clothes, it doesn't have a camera so you won't worry about the issues associated with that. The interface is sufficiently cumbersome that you can enter the numbers permitted for dialing, and not worry too much about your child adding all of their friends. It looks nice enough that your kids won't look like they're carrying a brick or some obsolete product to school. It's light enough that it won't overload their schoolbag, and doesn't need to be plugged in every night so they can be a little lazy about maintenance. It's cheap enough that if you lose it, you can just get another one.

Just teach them Morse code so that when you can't hear them you can still communicate by pressing the buttons. Oh, and pack a metal helmet to block the radiation. Then you're all set!

I have been browsing the internet for a very long time know to know if this is the right phone for me. My answer was yes,yes,yes! The polyphonic weird ringtones are what I prefer, actually. I like it because there is no external display, and the whole front of it is a bright, shiny silver colour that makes it look smart. It is very compact especially because it is a "flip" phone. I hate the phones with cameras because it makes it too expensive and plus you get a digital camera seperatly and it would still take way better pictures than a cellphone would. This is the phone of my personality, compatibility and it is the one of my choice. So if I was asked to reccomend a cellphone to someone, my answer would be the X427.

This phone is horrible. I've had several samsung phones in the past with very few problems. I read the Amazon reviews and decided the good outweighed the bad and took a leap of faith. Note to self, I should have not jumped, because I've had nothing but problems with this phone.

Problems:
*Bad to NO reception
*Dropped calls
*Unreliable caller i.d. (when I'm on the phone and someone else calls me, it picks a random number from my phone book as the caller, so I NEVER know who's on the other line).
*BAD phone

I would not recommend it to anyone. If I didn't have a contract w/Cingular, I would end my contract. The best they can do is to replace the phone with the same one, because I may have gotten one from a bad "batch". The funny thing about this batch, 3 of my friends w/the same phone, has the same problems. Now I have to pay the cost to just get a brand new phone, because I'm hating samsung x427's right about now, and not very pleased w/Cingular, who has no solutions to my problem.