Samsung MM-A900

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: Overall, calls are loud and clear on this cell phone. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have to adjust the volume occasionally, especially when we entered areas known for bad reception. Thankfully, it’s easy to do using the volume keys on the side of the cell phone. We wish activating the speakerphone was as simple. But once we mastered turning on the speakerphone call quality was good.

Audio Playback: Playing MP3s through the cell phone’s stereo speakers come through loud and clear. We were even able to turn the media player on and leave it playing tunes in our office while working. (Note: Given the Samsung Blade’s paltry battery life, we don’t recommend doing this unless the charger is nearby. There’s no sense using your cell phone as a music device at the risk of missing calls.)

Voice Commands: It took us about 15 minutes to train the cell phone to recognize and respond to our voice commands. While this is an extremely useful tool to have in a cell phone, just realize this Samsung doesn’t always get all the commands. So have a little patience if you plan on using this feature often.

Ease of Use

Menu/Phonebook: We found using the phonebook and navigating through the menu intuitive. Even entering and accessing phone numbers was easy. You can include 5 phone numbers, an e-mail address, and notes. There are no slots for address information, if you want that capability, consider adding it to the notes section. Too bad accessing and using the rest of the cell phone’s features wasn’t as simple. We often had to refer to the manual to do basic things such as sending pics.

Camera/Video: The 1.3-megapixel camera lens sits on a hinge at the top of the Samsung Blade, with a flash on the face of the cell phone. Swivel the lens and use the external screen as a viewfinder to take self-portraits. Snapping and storing pics are effortless and we were impressed with picture and video quality. However, to receive pictures on the camera phone you need to set up an account. Another drawback is that you can’t add more memory to the cell phone and the 50MB of internal memory is just not enough to store a decent amount of photos, music, messages and videos.

On the plus side, the Samsung Blade supports PictBridge, which is a way to send pictures from a camera directly to a PictBridge-enabled printer. Since it’s a 1.3-megapixel camera, you’ll be able to print quality 4x6 photos. In order to use this feature, you’ll need to use the included USB cable to connect the camera phone to the printer. If the printer has Bluetooth ditch the cable and send photos using the cell phone’s Bluetooth connection.

Music: As mentioned earlier the MP3 playback quality is impressive. The cell phone supports both MP3 and AAC files. But if you want to use this feature be prepared to spend some dough since you’ll need to download songs from Sprint’s store. How many songs you can save on the cell phone will depend on what else is stored on the Samsung Blade (Note: If you only store music, you’ll only get about 10 songs.)

Messaging: We had no problems sending and receiving text messages on the cell phone. To expedite sending messages the phone has 20 preset message options (10 are already created and you can pen 10 of your own).

Connectivity/Bluetooth: The biggest issue is not actually pairing a Bluetooth headset with the cell phone; it’s that you can’t activate the feature until you actually place a call. This is extremely counter-intuitive.

Design

Look and Feel: Many have said the Samsung Blade is Sprint’s answer to Motorola’s Razr and it’s not a bad comparison, but you won’t find the Samsung Blade being offered in as many colors as the Motorola Razr. No, the Samsung A900 comes in just one color: Black. But, hey, black matches everything and conceals the scratches that can come from everyday wear and tear. Although it doesn’t sport as slim a profile as the Motorola Razr, the Samsung Blade is slightly easier to open with one hand and has a bright external display.

On the face of the cell phone you’ll also find three buttons for playing music without ever having to flip it open – a nice touch. If you like that, you’ll appreciate the ability to activate the camera by touching a button on the side of the phone. Speaking of the camera, we loved the lens’ swivel design and found it much easier to turn than the lens on its sibling, the Samsung T809.

Keypad: Flat keypads are all the rage and the Samsung A900 didn’t forsake this trend. Its black numeric keypad is easy to dial using one hand. However, you’ll rely heavily on the Samsung Blade’s ultra-bright internal display to light up the keypad if you’re dialing or texting in a darkened environment since the keypad backlighting is quite dim. The circular silver nav-key is nice but we wished it acted more like Apple’s trademark iPod controls than a standard four-way button.

Battery Life

This is one area where the Samsung Blade falls short. On average, we needed to charge the cell phone daily if we used it regularly to make calls and send/receive text messages. But when we used the cell phone to make two to three 10 minute calls a day and light texting, the Samsung A900 could go a few days without needing more juice. Unfortunately, you can’t get the included USB cable to do double duty as a charger. With some models, if you attach the phone to the PC using the USB cable it will recharge the phone – that’s not the case here. If you want an extra charger you’ll need to buy one.