vB Easy Archive - Samsung U600 incremental review

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Samsung U600 incremental review
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Posted by: wizard8873

I picked up t he Samsung U600 today and decided to do a review. Since I always tend to forget my thoughts, i will be writing an incremental review as I learn to use the phone. I used a D500E for two years and loved it and saw no need to upgrade until this came out

First Impressions:
The phone is gorgeous and has a solid feel to it. The is a little bit of wobble but it is only when i move the lower end of the screen from side to side. apart from that, it's very solid. The phone snaps open and closed so it isn't a hassle to open and close.

While moving items between the D500 and U600, i kept moving the sim back and forth and found that the plastic was very slippery and had a little bit of trouble taking off the back cover to get to the sim slot. I ended up keeping the cover off when after some frustration.

The screen is very vivid, big, and easy to read. my only issue is with the D500, when the backlight would go off, a clock would be shown and this is missing in the U600 as far as i can tell.

the size of the phone is great. most of the slim sliders that interested me always seemed too wide and that turned me off. this one is only slightly wider. it's very comfortable to hold.

Features:
The alarm clock now has 5 different alarms. the snooze can be set to each on with a choice of intervals and number of times it repeats. I have not had a chance to try out much else so i will report back on the player and such.

Ring:
For calls, there are five settings: tone, vibrate, vibrate then ring, vibrate and ring, and ascending ring. for the messages, there is only ring or vibrate. the tones can be selected from either your mp3 list or the preloaded tones on the phone.

Annoyances:
The phone locks the keys when the call is made. This makes sense since the keys, not the 1,2,3,4, etc ones but the top ones, are touch sensitive but it gets annoying at times. i see no point to having the i button and navigation buttons locked up as the are not touch sensitive.

there is a confirmation on whether or not you want to turn on the speaker during the call. i see no need for this. it just adds more steps that are not necessary.

Setup:
this was very easy. for MMS, i just wrote down the settings from my D500 and they worked. for the WAP, i had to use the T-Mobile Wireless Data Configurator and the D802 seemed to worked fine. never received a text when the D820 was selected, dont know why.

Misc:
since the D900 is a similar size, i am going to get this case to see how well it fits: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...:MEWA:IT&ih=017. once it comes in, i'll let you guys know if its worth it. im one of those people that hates to keep the phone in my pocket as i fear it getting scratched.

well thats it for now. I will post pics tomorrow. so far, minus the few annoyances, i am very pleased with the phone. every phone has little annoyances when you first start using it so it'll just take some time getting used to.

if there are any questions or anything anyone wants to know, please ask and i'll answer them to the best of my ability

Posted by: wizard8873

Camera

so, today i had a chance to test out the camera a little bit. it takes a few seconds for it to take the picture at the highest resolution. the flash is very bright but it only comes on when taking a picture. there is a way to preview it though. when you're preparing to take the picture, press and hold the camera shortcut button. it's like a normal camera where you press it down almost all the way and it'll focus and be ready. press it down just a little bit more and the it takes the picture. from the few pictures that i took, the quality to me seems decent but i have not had enough time to take a lot of pics yet. here they are:

This was taken with the flash on and in a dark corner:

the camera does have a zoom function on it although the zoom is not too great. The picture with that cat was taken with it fully zoomed in.

Touch sensitive keys
i really like the idea of them but it just seems like they weren't fully thought out. in camera mode, you have to press it for about a second to exit back to the main menu. everywhere else, its just a small little dab. i find myself hitting them without thinking and then either getting asked if i want to exit the application or sent to a different part of the screen. the should have set it to when the user is in an application, you have to hold the button for a second before it does anything to prevent the accidental hits.

Layout
The main keys do seems to be a little bit close together. i have hit a few keys on accident when typing. on the right side, you have the shortcut for the camera and the slot for the microsd card. on the left, you have the volume keys and the usb/charger input. on cool thing with the volume keys. on my D500, if someone called i could just silence the phone and ignore the call. with this, there is a setting where a message is sent to the user. this does not have to be turned on but i thought it was a cool little addition.

The camera is hidden when the phone is closed. it hides behind the battery cover.

pics:

Posted by: wizard8873

Deleting and organizing photos

when deleting photos, even messages, there are three options: selected, multiple, or all.
when multiple is selected, you just check the ones you want deleted. when the photos are selected, you can even select to delete protected ones, wallpapers, unexpired and shared. keeping your photos organized seems to be much better than before.

if you want organization, you can create folders and move your pics into those folders. want privacy? there is an option where you can have your messages and my folder protected. this is a great feature but i wish that it would also allow you to set passwords on certain folders instead of all of them.

reception
reception seems to be as good, if not better, than my D500E. there are times when I had signal with the D500E and i don't have on this phone, especially in my house, and vice versa. a few times, people have complained about not being able to hear me when i'm in my car but as soon as i move the phone be the window, the problem goes away. i've had this problem with the D500E but not as frequently. for those who have sigs turned off, the car is a 2006 Nissan Altima. haven't tried it in other cars but mine seems to come close to a dead zone at times.

battery life
the first day after i got my phone i was playing with it almost nonstop and the battery ended up dying on me around 9:30PM. I took it off the charger at 6:00AM so it had very good life. yesterday the life seemed to last a lot longer. the phone was taken off of charge at 10:00AM and at around 11:00PM, it only lost one bar. while i wasn't playing around with it as much, i did talk more and did send messages back and forth.

impression so far
overall, i am very impressed with the phone. once you get passed the touch sensitive buttons, i still find myself calling people on accident or doing something i dont want to, its a great phone with lots of improvements. my only disappointment is that there is no voice commands. while i didn't use it often on my D500E, it did come in handy with heavy traffic and me not being able to take my eyes off of the road. after a while though, i got used to the key location but it was that little bit of assurance that i did infact dial the correct number.

for the case, i am debating on whether or not to actually get one. i have screen protectors coming in the mail and the phone fits so well into any of my pockets, until my D500E, that i'm almost tempted to not get one. besides, the phone looks great and most cases ruin the look. i might wait until clear cases come out and see how good they are

Posted by: UnseenLlama

Excellent review! I'm looking at getting this phone also. Only recently have I been attracted to slider phones (Nokia E65 and Motorola Z3). Where did you buy your phone from?

Posted by: UnseenLlama

Also you mentioned accidentally hitting the touch sensitive buttons. Is there an autolock function for the phone while it's closed?

Posted by: wizard8873

yes. when you close the lid, the phone locks. also, when you make a call it will autolock so that you dont press the keys accidently while talking

Posted by: UnseenLlama

Thanks for the response!

Do you know if the phone supports remote synching (SyncML)? Most of the newer phones do. You are able to setup a synchronization profile and push all your contacts/calendar/notes to a server. I saw on phonescoop it does support SyncML, I just didn't know if it could sync to a remote server. Also, I have a Mac and Apple just recently released iSync plugins for the D600 and D900. Thanks again for your help!

Posted by: wizard8873

according to the specs, it does support SyncML. i dont use this feature so i dont know where to enable/configure it

namecard recognition

so, i tried to see how well the name card recognition worked. it picked up the name, email address, phone number, and fax. the name was placed into first name only and not into first and last name.

camera settings
so, after fumbling around with the settings, i found the settings for the camera. to get to it its camera mode -> right touch button -> settings -> camera and then the settings. i wasn't going out of my way to find this and noticed some users were wondering about certain options for the camera and how to get to it so i figured i'd post the info.

Posted by: wizard8873

battery life
As i reported, the first day the phone died on me within the first day of usage which worried me. well, for the past two days, i've been doing a lot of texting, taking pics, talking, and surfing the web and must say that the battery life appears to be pretty good. it takes about 13 hours for the phone to lose one bar under moderate to heavy usage for me.

reception
reception seems to be pretty good. i was at the beach today and my d500e struggled to get reception out there. it would get one bar to maybe two at max. i was getting full signal strength with U600. i called a few people just to see if the signal strength was indeed better and it appeared so. no dropped calls and both me and the person on the other side could hear without problems.

other people's impressions
everyone that sees the phone immediately says "What kind of phone is that? i've haven't seen it yet." i give it to them to see and tell them. a few people dislike the touch sensitive buttons. most of these have had experience with the LG Chocolate but as soon as the play with it, they do agree that its better but not what they like. as far as looks go, people seem to really like that phone.

Posted by: gabbyevs

great pics love the cat!

Posted by: the blue

nice review. thanks for sharing.

..... do you try to transfer any song from your computer to the u600 via usb cable? how long does it take to transfer a 3-4m song? and will the phone function be turned off (cannot make or receive any call) while transferring?? thanks again

Posted by: wizard8873

ill let you know on wednesday when my memory card comes in. most of the transfer \s i've done to this point have been with bluetooth.

Posted by: the blue

thanks

Posted by: I2icky

Here're a couple pics that I took on top of the CN tower today. There is a bit of a reddish tint on the pictures taken by the camera, but over than that, i have to say that i'm quite impressed by the quality of pictures given the size of the phone.

Here's a macro shot that i took of my course kit. The phone actually captured some details that I can hardly see with my naked eye. I was only able to see them after I saw them on the photo and peered closely afterward.

Posted by: I2icky

Here're another two pics, one in low lighting and another indoors.

Posted by: wizard8873

memory card
I got my microSD card in today and decided to try it out. i transfered about 7 albums right away. since i left my cable at work, i just plugged the adapter with the chip into my camera and transfered the music that way. i'll test out the transfer rate tomorrow once i get the cable.

upon plugging in the card, the phone seemed sluggish as the phone was reading the card but after about a minute, mind you there was about 830MB of information on the card, everything went back to normal. when playing music, there is about a 3 second gap between songs.

next, i tried the camera. taking a pic and saving it to the memory card seemed like it was when it was being saved to the phone. viewing the pics does take some time though. as with the songs, there is about a three second pause when opening the pic.

to view files from the memory card, you go to menu -> my files -> memory card and then you can open up the pictures folder, video folder, or which ever you want to view.

email client
while i had an email client on the D500, i never bothered to use it. i didnt see a need for it but i decided to give it a try on the U600. Once you know all the settings, there is an easy step by step setup wizard that walks you through the setup. Once setup, you can set the check interval to, manual check (do not notify), 1 hr, 3 hrs, 6 hrs, or 12 hrs. download limit can be set to 100KB, 200KB, or 300KB. you can download the entire message or just the header.

once setup, i gave it a shot and found that it is pretty useful. since i get a lot of emails from forums, i just set the email check to manual.

texting
texting has the same format as before, characters, T9, and numbers. at the top of the SMS is the recipient field. you can either enter the number, name, or just go into your address book and add people. what i find very useful is the option to select multiple people at once without having to go into the address book constantly, as with the D500. when using T9, a list drops down with the choice of words to use. with the D500, all that was needed was to press the 0 to change the words. i like the option in the D500 more but at least here you get to see all the words that can be selected.

impressions so far
overall, i really like this phone. i'm used to the touch sensitive buttons but im still at odds about it. i like them but i still find myself hitting them on accident from time to time. imo, this was a great investment and the buttons will just take some time to get used to. although, it makes me wonder how this feature will be when the iphone and all its competition's variants come out. will it be a good feature or will it just add to frustration? i guess we'll see when they come out

Posted by: the blue

yeah, please let us know the transfer speed when u got the cable. thanks

Posted by: wizard8873

transfer speed
so i got in today and finally got some time to try out the transfer rate. I moved over a 4MB file to the phone and it took around 15 seconds for the file to transfer.

Posted by: the blue

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard8873

transfer speed
so i got in today and finally got some time to try out the transfer rate. I moved over a 4MB file to the phone and it took around 15 seconds for the file to transfer.

nice. thanks for your help.. i think i will get one today or tomorrow

Posted by: wizard8873

no problem. for those using bluetooth, it took about 43 seconds to move a 4.22MB file.

Posted by: wizard8873

battery life w/mp3
so, i decided to give the media player a test while cutting the grass. battery life is a lot better than i had expected it to be. i took the phone off of the charger this morning at a little before 7:00 when i was going to work. i used the phone to make a few calls and send texts to a few friends. at around 17:15, i went to cut the grass and threw all the music i had into one playlist. after an hour and a half of listening to music, the battery indicator still showed three bars. infact, it still shows three bars so i am very impressed.

sound quality
being that i am not an audio enthusiast, i found that the sound quality was good with the U600. I set the volume to 15 and i could easily hear over the lawn mower. the only thing that was missing was bass but it is a cell so its ok. if i was going out for a few hours i would still grab my mp3 player as it does have better sound, more storage, and it'll save battery life of the cell. but, if i was going to the gym or doctors office or anywhere where i would wait an hour or two, i can see myself leaving the mp3 player at home and using the U600.

when using the memory card, there is anywhere from a 3 second to a 6 second pause between tracks as the phone reads the next song. volume can be controlled when the phone is locked but that is about it. in order to change tracks, pause, or stop the song, you have to unlock the phone.

Posted by: Strength

Good info dude,

a Samsung with good battery life is a welcome addition

Posted by: the blue

i just start to play with the phone. and how can i select songs from memory card in "music player"? i can only choose files in phone memory now

thanks

Posted by: wizard8873

if youre going through the media player, then it should just see them right away. there is no special way of viewing the memory card. if its through the menu its my files -> memory card -> music and then you select the albums you want to play

Posted by: the blue

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard8873

if youre going through the media player, then it should just see them right away. there is no special way of viewing the memory card. if its through the menu its my files -> memory card -> music and then you select the albums you want to play

i found out why i can't play the songs under MusicPlayer (w/o using file manager) even when i see them in my memorycard using file manager......

the reason is:
you cannot put sub-folder in the default Music folder. so what i do now is i just setup a new folder in the memory card root called "Mp3". and in this case the Music Player will able to see the songs even in sub-folder inside it.

Posted by: wizard8873

so i went to the Polish Constitution Day parade in Chicago and decided to give the camera a shot and see how good the pictures are. some of the pictures are zoomed in while others aren't.

these two pics will show you how much you can zoom in with the camera

Yesterday, i shortly went back to the D500 because I was letting a friend borrow it and wanted to make sure that there was nothing bad on there. Well, after using the U600 with the touch sensitive keys, it felt awkward using the D500. I finally got used to them after a bit and now they are really convenient buttons.

edit

i also took two quick videos just so you guys could see how they look

Posted by: wizard8873

bluetooth headphones
so, i recently purchased a pair of Motorola HT820 bluetooth headphones. because of the size of the U600, i find that it should make a great mp3 player for quick trips to the gym and bike riding. My Creative Zen Vision W is nice but its more of a media player than an mp3 player and I lost the clip to my Creative Zen Micro and hate to have a cable run from my pocket to my ears. my next purchase will probably be an adapter so i can use my bluetooth headphones with either one.

back on topic though, sound quality is very good through the headphones. there were no issues pairing the phone at all. once paired, to listen to music you go to menu -> my files -> select the song and click option -> play via -> then chose either a single or double headset. i only have one headset so can't test out the quality over two.

today, i took the phone off of the charger around 6:30 and at 13:00, i had an appointment at Nissan so while i was there, i figured i'd give the headphones and phone a try. well, the appointment was a short one and i put the headphones back on when i got home. after an hour and a half of listening to music, the battery indicator dropped one bar. i sent multiple texts throughout the day so the battery life isn't too bad imo, especially for such a slim phone.

i could walk about 25-30 feet before the signal would start to deteriorate. i also have a motorola H605 to use when driving and i was told that i sound odd , almost like there was an echo, but i dismissed this as the headset. plus im in the car and, as stated early, its like a dead zone in my car at times. i talked with the gf using the new headphones and while they are not really meant to be dedicated headsets, imo, she said i sounded raspy (sp?). i was in my house and had low signal but when moving to an area with greater signal, she stated that it did not improve. since she can hear me alright still, its no big deal but i thought i'd let you guys know. don't know if its just my phone or headsets or all U600's so i would just check to see if you can try to make a call with one at a store and test it out or talk to other U600 owners to see if they experience the same issue.

overall impression
i am very please with the phone. i had my doubts with the touch sensitive buttons and it wasn't until i went back to my D500 that i found how great they really are. i really encourage anyone interested in this phone to go to a store, if possible, as test it out in person. its really a love it or hate it type phone and its not cheap either.

pros
-Touch Sensitive keys (for me at least)
-3.2MP camera
-size of the phone
-sunlight mode
-smart ui
-battery life (for its size, it really is a good battery)
-ring + vibrate (for those who like it)
-you can set your own personal tones for SMS and MMS
-setup wizard
-automatic time and date

cons
-no voice dialing
-a little bit of wobble
-when using t9, you have a list of possible words and pressing 0 doesn't change them.
-flash only turns on when taking a picture
-sound issues with bluetooth headsets (at least in my case)

i think that really covers all of what i use. if anyone has any questions still, either PM me or you can post in here. hope this helped some of you.

Posted by: OZLancer

-What is the email attachment limit (I am aware the auto-DL limit is 300k). The d900 was 5MB.
-Does anyone know if it works with Rogers "Name Display"?

Posted by: wizard8873

^ i tried it and if there was any attachment over 300KB, it would not retrieve the message. i don't know if there is some setting that i'm missing but no matter what i tried, it wouldn't work.

a quick little not about the smart search. awesome feature. when typing in a number, it will look through all the numbers, in the phone book and previously called, and then show them on the display so you can select them. saves a bit of time.

also, since i did get a few messages about the recipients, it is case sensitive when you type in the name of the person. to change the input from number to text, just press the * key at the bottom left hand corner. you can also go to options, add recipient and then choose from either recent contacts, phonebook, or groups. this will allow you to select multiple people at once so you don't have 12 lines and have to add each person individually. there is a limit of 20 recipients that can be added.

when texting, you have a limit of 12 texts or 1836 characters that can be added. it does not tell you how many characters are left until the first text is full but at the top, there is a large displaying which text you are on. if you do calculate it out, it comes out to 153 characters to one text.

Posted by: OZLancer

^ This would not be very practical for me to say the least - I'm curious to know why Samsung is continually reducing this limit; My D900 could retrieve practically anything, and even my SYNC (a707 / a706 here in Canada) can retrieve 500K. If a higher end phone is now reduced to 300 how could I even ask people to send me pictures etc. and expect to even view/send them before I get home? Sounds like another device or manufacturer would be the best bet for even moderate multimedia email usage/attachments.

Posted by: jpmontalbo

I have recently purchased this phone and was having issues with mms. I used the settings from the T-Mobile wiki and t-zones works fine, but not mms. I was wondering if you could share every single setting on your phone for mms if it worked for you. Thanks.

Posted by: wizard8873

i did the same and it didn't work. i went to T-mobile and had them send me the settings saying i have a T-809 and it worked. the settings i have though are as followed:

home URL: http://216.155.174.84/servlets/mms

proxy: checked

IP address: 216.155.165.50

Port: 8080

DNS: unchecked

bearer: GPRS

advanced settings
APN: wap.voicestream.com
login ID and password are left blank

Posted by: tugga

Does it auto save sms msg's? or do you have to select save msg?

Posted by: wizard8873

it saves the messages automatically to the phone, not the SIM. as stated earlier, you can also make a folder and then move selected texts to that folder.

Posted by: jpmontalbo

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard8873

i did the same and it didn't work. i went to T-mobile and had them send me the settings saying i have a T-809 and it worked. the settings i have though are as followed:

home URL: http://216.155.174.84/servlets/mms

proxy: checked

IP address: 216.155.165.50

Port: 8080

DNS: unchecked

bearer: GPRS

advanced settings
APN: wap.voicestream.com
login ID and password are left blank

Hey thanks for the help. I just did what you did and did the T-Mobile configurator and it put the settings in for me. If you are still interested in a clear case, I bought five from this guy on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.ie/Samsung-U600-Cry...5QQcmdZViewItem

Pretty fast shipping and good product.

Posted by: wizard8873

thanks but im holding off on the case. the phone is pretty comfortable in the pocket and the only scratches i have received was from when it fell on the gound. the phone is pretty durable so im not too worried.

Posted by: jimdeno

Hi Wizard, thanks for such a thorough review. I have been thinking of buying this phone and was wondering if you knew what web apps it could run? Specifically the GMail program and Opera Mini, which I couldn't get to work on my T809. Thanks for the help!

Posted by: wizard8873

most of the game i got off of getjar.com as long as they worked with the D900. i could get both gmail and opera mini to work

Posted by: wizard8873

well, i have been using the phone more and would like to let you guys know a little more about messaging. when you create a new message, there are options that can be selected. from the choices you have: edit text, add item, create item, insert, input language, input method, save to, advanced, and input field.

edit text
in this menu, you have two choices, text selection on and text style. in text selection, you select the text you want then you can cut, copy, or remove the text that is selected. with T9, the whole word is selected but when using ABC, only on character is selected at a time.

when you select text style, you have the option of changing the text size to small, normal or large. further down you can have, bold, italic, underline, and/or strikethrough text. further below lets you select the color of the font and the background. there are 16 colors that you can choose for either. these settings do not appear to save everytime you use the phone so you need to change them everytime you create a new text. i could not find a place to change this unfortunately.

add item
under add item, you can select image, sound, video, namecard, appointment, anniversary, task, or memory card files.

when adding items, you can preview them first so that you can make sure to add the right item.

create item
under create item, you have the option to take photo, record sound, or record video.

the video is limited to 12 seconds so as to not go over the MMS size limit. once added, you have the option to preview what you have added. selecting the file and pressing the hangup/c key will delete the file and you will be prompted first just incase this is a mistake.

when recording audio, you select when to record and then you can stop or pause at any given point. it appears the the limit of the sound file is 7 minutes and 10 seconds. the limit for e-mail on the voice recorder is 6 minutes and 4 seconds and the maximum that any sound can be recorded is for one hour.

when adding a photo to an MMS, it is automatically resized. once added to the MMS, it will display the size. if you are adding a file, it will warn you that continuing in the operation will change the message from an SMS to an MMS. I was able to take 5 pictures before i was told that the message was too large. the sizes of the pictures were 70KB, 65KB, 60KB, 51KB, and 41KB. when deleting multiple files, just press and hold the hangup/c button and everything will be erased without warning.

insert
when inserting, you have the options to insert a template, emoticon, clip art, namecard, appointment, anniversary, task, memo, or bookmark.

for templates, you need to create one before using. there are 10 fields to use for this. once added and template is selected, you go to the menu with templates and select the one you want to use.

you have 31 emoticons to use when sending a message. some of them, like crying, have two different types. you have one that can face forward or be turned slightly. the symbol is shown at the very top center. when added into the text, it will display the emoticon. T9 also has the shortcuts saved but the display as the characters and not the icon for the emoticon. i have not had the ability to test to see if the user on the other end sees the emoticon or the symbol.

when adding clipart, you can add a picture, animation, or melody. there are 24 pictures to add and all are black and white, there are 25 animations that can be added, and 10 sounds that can be added. i have not used any of these so i do not know if they work or not on other phones. once my D500E is returned to me, i will test them.

languages
there are 17 languages that can be selected. among the ones i recognize are english, italian, french, spanish, dutch, portuguese, turkish, and polish. this will only go into affect once it is selected so any text before the language selection will not be changed.

input method
this lets you choose between T9 Ab, T9 AB, T9 ab, Ab, AB, ab, numeric, or symbol. once Ab is selected, you have to go back and select T9 to use it as pressing the * key will not bring T9 back. the same applies if you select T9 and want to us AB. symbol needs to be selected regardless and this will bring up 5 menu. all 5 are visible at once but can the selected one is raised. using the directional pad, you select between the 5 and then 1-9 selects the character.

save to
this lets you save to drafts or any personal folders that you have created.

advanced
this takes you to sending options.

input field
this lets you select Cc, Bcc, subject, or attachments.

misc
once the backlight turns off, the touch sensitive keys will not being the phone one regardless of whether the slider is opened or closed.

still more to come when i find something worth mentioning, have time, and/or someone asks me something.

Posted by: extremme

[QUOTE=wizard8873]bluetooth headphones

cons

-flash only turns on when taking a picture

[QUOTE]

hold on to the volume buttons and the flash will be lited. You do not need to take photos to activate the flash.

Posted by: wizard8873

^yea, i learned that later on on accident and thought i posted it in here but i guess not

Posted by: Ragin Cajun 55

Can you ellaborate some more on the email? Will it poll a pop3 address?

Posted by: wizard8873

Yes, you can get mail from a POP3 or IMAP4 account with the built-in program. what else would you like to know about the email functionalities.

Posted by: Ragin Cajun 55

Well coming from a blackberry i get my email pushed directly to my phone. I know the shortest setting for checking email on the u600 is 1 hour. Do you have to sign in every time you want to check email or will the phone just poll the address for you and notify when there is something there? I send quite a few emails per day and dont want to be to far behind the game.

Posted by: wizard8873

when you setup the account, you type in your username and password so that you don't have to login everytime. you can get email at will even when you have it set to a certain interval. when you have new emails, you will get messages and you can choose whether or not you want to retrieve them. i have a blackberry too and while the U600 isn't as quick to tell you about email, i feel it is sufficient and if i had to use it at my work, i wouldn't have any problem with it.

Posted by: Ragin Cajun 55

That is great to hear. Basically I can drop my BB unlimited plan and pick up media max and all should be fine? Im hoping so. I love my BB but its a brick to carry around. I want something I can put in my pocket. Also does it matter which email service I use? I have a gmail acct. I may just poll my COX acct. though. Thanks alot.

Posted by: wizard8873

i use comcast and i also created a gmail account to test it and both work. i use the java app for gmail and use the builtin email for comcast. i have the unlimited text plan and tzone internet plan and i dont have any problems

Posted by: Ragin Cajun 55

So the built in email would be basically for your pop email? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure this phone will work for my needs.

Posted by: wizard8873

its for both POP3 and IMAP4.

Posted by: mongoos150

Please tell me you can turn the "T Mobile" banner off!

Posted by: wizard8873

yes you can. menu -> settings -> display settings -> text display -> idle text display -> text position -> off

bluetooth

Well, i recently purchased the Nokia BH-900 bluetooth headset since everyone was telling me i sounded muffled with my two others, Motorola H605 or HT820. I don't know if it's an issue with the U600 and Motorola or just my headsets since some of the other users reported that use Motorola bluetooth headsets and they work fine. anyways, i tested the Nokia out today and according to my gf, i sound normal and she could not tell when i switched from my phone to the headset. I will test it out tomorrow in the car to see if it could be because of the car for some odd reason.

Posted by: extremme

Guys if I recorded a wrong word into T9, can it be deleted?

I am currently exploring the camera function/options but some of the functions/option I am not sure what it is. I tried looking at the manual but it is not comprehensive enough. Where can I find out more details of the functions? E.g What is "SF", "N" etc.

Any good setting for the camera inorder to take excellent pics? ?

Posted by: wizard8873

SF, F, and N would stand for the quality of the picture. SF = super fine, F = fine, and N = normal. I just use automatic and the photos seem to come out just fine.

AFAIK, there is no way to delete a word put into T9. you shouldn't have to worry about it as the phone will show you all the possible words. with my D500, after i placed a certain amount of saved words into T9, it would start to delete the oldest. haven't had this with the U600 yet though.

Posted by: wizard8873

bluetooth update
So, I have been using the Nokia headset and everything seems to work fine. The sound from both ends comes through clear. I switched back to the Motorola headsets and i was told i sounded muffled. I switched back to the D500 and there were no problems with any of the headsets. i don't know why but there appears to be some problem with the U600 and certain Motorola headsets as others have said that their headsets work just fine.

Posted by: madleet3

hi i wonder if do u have any nite shots outdoors

Posted by: wizard8873

none as of now. i'll take some when i get the chance and post them up.

Posted by: jimdeno

The Samsung U600 is the first unlocked, overseas mobile phone I have purchased, and 2 days ago my screen went dead. I need to get this repaired under warranty, but Samsung USA won't help me since it is a phone from Singapore, and my email to Samsung Singapore got bounced back because they determined I'm in the wrong region to contact them.

Has anyone done in warranty repairs for a non-US Samsung phone before? How do I go about that? I would hate to lose the almost $400 I spent for this phone less than 2 months ago.

Posted by: wizard8873

afaik, there is no way. in order to have samsung repair it, you would need to live in a country which sells the phone from a provider or samsung themselves. you can try a third-party repair store to see how much it would cost or if it is even possible. the first place i would check is where you bought it from and see if the have an x amount of days to return or replace it.

Posted by: Jayden0606

Thanks for the awesome review.... This phone looks sexii and the camera as well. The only downside for me is the text drop down.... I love either hitting * or 0 to get to the next word. My Cingular 3125 is the same way and that is the main reason I stopped using it. The only difference is that the 3125 is really "smart," no pun intended, as it would show words you would probably use (the word that makes more sense) as the word you wanted to write. For example... That sounds "4663." It would choose good vs home, gone, hood.

Posted by: baltin

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard8873

upon plugging in the card, the phone seemed sluggish as the phone was reading the card but after about a minute, mind you there was about 830MB of information on the card, everything went back to normal. when playing music, there is about a 3 second gap between songs.

next, i tried the camera. taking a pic and saving it to the memory card seemed like it was when it was being saved to the phone. viewing the pics does take some time though. as with the songs, there is about a three second pause when opening the pic.

I've just ordered my u600 and i'm currently looking for micro SD card for it. But there are few types: "normal", Ultra II, Extreme III - difference is of course in their speed and prices. Which one should I choose? Is there noticeable difference in work of u600 - for example - no gap between songs/pics? Any ideas?

Cheers/pzdr

Posted by: wizard8873

i tested the "normal" SD card and I have no clue as to whether the other two would help or not.

also, here are the night pics. the first one was i little blurry because the phone was moved but it still gives you a general idea.

Posted by: mousejunior

Hi guys, Do you guys know how to view the photos that you took in full view mode without zooming it in? (minus the name of the photo) I saw a website that showed it can maximize to full view.

Posted by: wizard8873

holding the volume up button for a few seconds and it'll go into fullview mode.

Posted by: GeminiIII

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard8873

holding the volume up button for a few seconds and it'll go into fullview mode.

you only need to tap it briefly once

. it's quite slow to respond, so it can probably seem as if its necessary to press the volume key for a second or 2.
then again, tapping the volume key only zooms in whilst covering the whole screen (and chopping off the sides of the pic) rather than showing the photo full screen in landscape mode.

Posted by: mousejunior

Thanks guys. I guess I have to buy back the phone to re-try the full screen feature.

Posted by: wizard8873

alright, i'm posting to let you guys know how well the phone has been holding up.

first, the slider feels like new. there is a little bit of wobble in it but there's no more than the day that i bought it.

paint for the most part is holding up. the only place i can see where it has been coming off is on the end of the bottom part where the top portion slides across.

battery life is lacking, but this should be known from all of the other U600 threads floating around. games seem to drain the battery faster than anything else, even talking. i have used it less for music than before but it keeps it surprisingly well. it can be a little deceiving as three bars stay on for a long time. once you drop down to two, it seems as it'll drop to one in about an hour and a half with moderate used and then go to go to low battery fairly quickly.

the phone, and the screen, have been sturdy so far. i've dropped the phone a handful of times and there are only a few very small nicks and dents. i have dropped it open and closed and the biggest distance was about 4 feet on tile and about a foot by streets and it's still running so that should give you an idea of sturdiness. screen has scratches on it, it sits in my pocket without a screen protector, and all but two are minor and the two big ones are only seen with the screen is black. the battery cover seems to have the most scratches out of anything.

reception is ok. in the open it holds signal well while in basements is seems to struggle. once lost, it takes it a few minutes to find some signal.

the touch sensitive buttons are just like before. for me, they're a great addition. i can use them easily and it just feels weird when not having them. they aren't more or less sensitive than when i got it.

for all of you still wanting the U600 but are worried, hope this has helped. the screen is not super sturdy but i have not babied it at the same time. it actually fits in perfectly in the small pocket of jeans but be careful when bending down as it may bend the phone and break it. sitting down, you won't even feel it.

i may post some more if anything comes up that surprises me or if anything goes wrong unexpectedly.

Posted by: GeminiIII

Quote:

it can be a little deceiving as three bars stay on for a long time. once you drop down to two, it seems as it'll drop to one in about an hour and a half with moderate used and then go to go to low battery fairly quickly.

battery meters are never linear. when it drops down to 2 bars, that means that its approx 50% drained. when it drops down to 1 bar, that means that it's approx 85% drained. when it drops down to zero bars, that means that it's 98% drained.

Posted by: baulz

wizard8873, thanks for this fantastic review. when you first started the thread, i only briefly skimmed though it but now that i'm in the market for a U600, this was the very first review i came to (even before "professional" review sites) because i remember it being so thorough.
the only hard part was deciding on the color (white, black or blue) but i eventually opted for the blue.

EDIT : does anyone know if the samsung U600 takes .swf wallpapers?

Posted by: Vger6

I bought one of these two months ago. Overall the design and functions are very cool.

But, a BIG but, the communication is awful. I haven’t had a complete conversation with this phone. Doesn't matter that the signal bar is full, the quality always is like you are in a tunnel.

I am changing it again.

Don’t recommend it.