Samsung SPH-M520 Review

Permalink: Samsung SPH-M520 Review by Franz Bicar

Surprise won’t even begin to describe costumer’s feelings when they’ll see the new Samsung SPH-M520 for the very first time. A lot of us have been asking for something innovative, something different, from one of the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile phones - but they failed to do it with this one. Although the SPH-M520 remained true to Samsung’s slim slider phone’s, it won’t overly impress users already influenced by devices such as the iPhone or RIM’s Blackberries.

Having said that, I’d like to soften my criticism a little by saying that the phone in itself isn’t really that bad. As with other mobile devices , it has it’s good points that some users will be comfortable with.

Starting of with its design, the SPH-M520 remains true to Samsung’s popular form. But I’m just wondering, when will Samsung try something new? A candy-bar type phone would be a breath of fresh air when we are talking about all the slim sliders that Samsung has produced.

At 4.01 inches by 2.04 inches by 0.5 inch and 2.75 ounces the SPH-M520 is neither too big nor too small; it slips easily into a pocket and it won’t weigh you down. The slider mechanism is sturdy enough, but also sensitive enough to allow users to pen and close the phone with one hand.

The SPH-M520’s 262,000-color display measures a generous 2.1 inches (176×220 pixels). Like many Samsung displays, it’s bright and colorful and shows just about everything well. You can change the brightness, the backlighting time, and the dialing font size and color.

Samsung added a new layer to the standby screen. Now, you can find shortcut icons to seven functions that is, in my opinion, very convenient. You can cycle though the options while pressing the navigation toggle and make your selection with the OK key. It’s a convenient arrangement but you can turn it off and use the traditional toggle shortcuts instead.

Another positive aspect to the SPH-M520 is its well-designed navigation controls. It’s much better than what we see in most of today’s slider phones. The square toggle is large and is raised above the surface of the SPH-M520 and gives you no problem thumbing through the menus and selecting options using the tactile OK button.

The phone’s features basically contains the standard 500-contact phone book with room in each entry for five phone numbers, an e-mail address, a Web address, a nickname, and notes. You can save contacts to groups and pair them with a photo and one of 19 (72-chord) polyphonic ringtones for caller ID.

Other essentials include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a file manager, a speakerphone, a calendar, a scheduler, a voice recorder, an alarm clock, a memo pad, a calculator, a countdown timer, a task list and a world clock. You’ll also find stereo Bluetooth, USB mass storage, GPS support with Telenav access, voice dialing and commands, wireless backup for your contacts, modem capability, e-mail and instant messaging and PC syncing. The SPH-M520 also offers audible caller ID that will route through to a Bluetooth headset.

The SPH-M520 also has a 1.3-megapixel camera that takes pictures in four resolutions - 1.3-megapixel, high, medium, and low. Other options include a self timer, five fun frames, five color tones, brightness and white balance controls, a night mode, a 2x zoom and four shutter sounds. It can also act as a camcorder and shoots clips with sound and a set of editing options similar to the still camera. After doing so, you can save your work in its memory. The SPH-M520’s internal memory, however, is small at 16MB, but you can use the microSD card slot for more storage.

You can personalize the SPH-M520 with several of clock styles, themes, and screen savers. If you want additional options beyond what comes on the phone, you can download them using the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser.

The SPH-M520 has a rated battery life of 3.5 hours talk time. According to FCC radiation tests, the Samsung SPH-M520 has a digital SAR rating of 0.761 watt per kilogram.

Sources:
http://www.infosyncworld.com
http://review.zdnet.com
http://www.phonearena.com