Samsung SCH-u740 from Verizon Wireless Review
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Samsung has been making quite a splash these days with cell phone innovation. Take the BlackJack, for instance. It’s a great phone in its price range with good multimedia features. Similarly, the SCH-u740 is another solid offering for Verizon Wireless exclusively. The really neat thing about the u740 is its dual-flip design and a QWERTY keyboard. Needless to say, QWERTY keyboards aren’t for smartphones anymore. They are a must have for messaging nuts, and companies are filling the gap very well.
Samsung SCH-u740 from Verizon Wireless
(Review) – Samsung has been making quite a splash these days with cell phone innovation. Take the BlackJack, for instance. It’s a great phone in its price range with good multimedia features. Similarly, the SCH-u740 is another solid offering for Verizon Wireless exclusively. The really neat thing about the u740 is its dual-flip design and a QWERTY keyboard. Needless to say, QWERTY keyboards aren’t for smartphones anymore. They are a must have for messaging nuts, and companies are filling the gap very well.
As always, Samsung and others tend to be very conservative with the general exterior of their phones. As such, the u740 presents a mixture of black and metallic hints for a classy feel. The front of the phone has a camera lens that supports five separate resolutions (1280×960, 640×480, 320×240, 160×120, and Picture ID); fine, normal, and economy quality settings; lighting adjustments, such as white balance; self-timer; up to 4x zoom and a whole slew of options that are fairly standard these days. The photo quality in our tests was acceptable, but there’s only so much you can do with a megapixel camera. What a pity!
Also on the front are music controls that you should expect from the latest of mobile phones. They are touch sensitive, so the usability factor is amazingly sleek. Just swipe your fingers across the controls and you are set. Unfortunately, however, every time you need to work with the controls, you will have to unlock them. That’s the default setting, which you could change, but just be ready to be annoyed when the selection skips around with a slight touch. Since the u740 is from Verizon, it supports the company’s VCAST video and music services. The audio quality was downright amazing from earphones and the phone’s speakers. Awesome!
As you move down, the left edge of the device is equipped with a Hold button (to lock or unlock the aforementioned music controls), volume control and the insertion jack. The right edge, on the other hand, has a microSD expandable storage slot and the speakerphone key. Disappointingly, there’s no dedicated camera key on the outer edge of the phone; therefore, the only way to use the camera is to flip it open. It’s a minor, but annoying quirk.
The SCH-u740 is certainly sturdy and durable with its weight and a thin, comfortable hold.
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As you flip open the phone, that’s where the real fun lies. In addition to the camera feature, you can record videos as well. The default is set to 15 seconds, but you can take one for as long as the storage capacity lasts. Although it’s a nice feature, the quality was pure horrendous; that’s not to say, we didn’t expect this from a megapixel lens. Sometimes companies need to be a bit more thoughtful and sensible. It’s pointless to add features just for the sake of adding features, even when the onboard hardware doesn’t justify it.
The QWERTY keyboard is all set to go for messaging fans as soon as you set the phone to landscape mode. Interestingly enough, it automatically does that for you, which is really cool. The four navigational OK key is right underneath the amazing second display with 176 x 220 resolution and 262K color support (the exterior display is nice as well with the standard clock, battery meter and the like; in addition, you can view album art and track information when in music playback mode; 96×96 resolution with 65k colors). The Send, End/Power, Clear, Camera and Voice Command keys are also situated right below the internal display. There are three additional soft keys that you can work with as well. The keypad was fun to use; all the keys stood out, which made typing fun and exciting.
From a features standpoint, you have the standard ringtone, wallpaper, e-mail (possibly for professionals?) and the like options to customize the phone. Then there’s Bluetooth connectivity, which worked great, and support for VCAST music and video selection through EV-DO. Thanks to EV-DO and its broadband-like speeds, the music and video playback was excellent. However, the videos were less than impressive. There was pixilation all across the board, especially in high-paced scenes. The video issue is a common one in a number of Verizon Wireless VCAST phones, so we can’t blame Samsung as the sole guilty party for this fault.
The audio sounded great, in normal and speakerphone modes. Even though people could tell we were using a cell phone, the quality was crystal clear and refined. Bluetooth headsets worked great as well with no loss is audio quality. Samsung SCH-u740 is expected to have 3.5 hours of rated talk time; in our test lab, we had it go up to 3.55. The standby time is set at 8.3, which we’ll take Samsung’s word for.
All in all, Samsung’s SCH-u740 is a great phone, especially for multimedia lovers, with superb audio quality and a lot of advanced features at a reasonable price tag of $149.99 with a 2-year contract from Verizon Wireless.
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