Samsung SCH-U740 - Review
This is Phone Arena’s video review of the Samsung U740 phone offered by Verizon Wireless. The U740 is a unique phone due to its dull hinge can be either open standard flip for normal use or the flip can be opened sideways for sending text messages when using the Qwerty keypad.
The front of the phone features a quite small 96X96 pixel display. The display is about the size of postage stamp. On the display, it shows the date and time as well as signal strength and message indicators. Below the display, we have the touch sensitive MP3 player controls. Above it, we have a standard 1.3 megapixel camera with flash. On the left side of the phone, we have the volume buttons as well as the charger and data port. On the right side of the phone, we have the speakerphone button and the microSD card. The battery is access by removing the battery cover on the back of the phone. Opening up the phone will show the standard 176X220 resolution, 262,000 color display.
For this particular type of phone, we would have like to have seen a QVGA display used such as the one used on the LG enV. Also have two stereo speakers. We keypad has many keys on it; this is due to the dialing keys as well as the Qwerty keypad. The U740 is the first phone by Samsung to use the new flash UI interface which has been used by some LG phones for the past year.
The main menu is categorized into contacts, recent calls, settings and tools, get it now and messaging. There are several themes that can be chose. This theme, even though slightly faster does lack the graphics that the standard my desk theme uses.
The U740 can take pictures in either portrait or landscape mode. For portrait pictures, you would open the phone at standard flip and access the camera. For landscape pictures, you must flip the phone open sideways and then access the camera. Once you’re inside of the camera menu, there are several options to choose from. To take a picture, press the OK button, pictures then took can either choose to save or erase the image. Going into the camcoder mode now, to record a video simply press the OK button video begins recording; to end video record press the Ok button again and you can save the video.
The quality of the video record is not too good and as far as the record pictures is also lacking. This is due to the 1.3 megapixel camera on the U740. We would have like to have seen a 2 megapixel camera use such as the one on the LG enV. For MP3 music playback, you must flip the phone open sideways, go into get it now, music and tones and my music. While the music is being played, you can adjust the volume by using the volume buttons. On the side of the phone are two stereo speakers which the music plays back through. Closing the phone will activate the front MP3 player controls. You can play and pause, fast forward, rewind, skip ahead or skip back.
The overall quality of the MP3 playback on the U740 is nice however since the stereo speakers are on the inside flip closing the flip will mute the sounds somewhat. Because of this, we recommend leaving the phone flipped open during music playback.
The main feature of the U740 is the Qwerty keypad for text messaging. Opening the phone up, you can seethe keys laid out here just like the standard keyboard can access the message, option, go into new message, you can send a text message and then you use these keys to type the message like you would normally. This is easy to use much more easier than either iTap or T9 which is predictive text entry method. However, we found these keys to be very small and space too closely together. Often times, we would end up pressing one of the wrong keys and then would have to go back delete it and start over again.
Between the U740 and the LG enV, we feel that the enV’s keypad is laid out much nicer and is easier to use with fewer mistakes. Overall, the U740 is a nice quality phone however it’s lacking some features that its competitor the enV has. Most noticeably, the U740 has a standard 176X220 pixel display where the enV has a higher quality QVGA display. The keypad on the U740, the keys are much smaller and they’re crumbed much more closer together where on the enV the keys are larger with more splaces.
The actual call quality of the U740 is good and is comparable to the enV. The main difference between the U740 and the enV is the size difference. The U740 is more a Razr size. If the size is important to you then I would suggest going with the U740. However, if you’re looking for a phone that has much better features including a 2 megapixel camera and a better quality internal display and is slightly easier to use for text messaging, we would suggest going with the LG enV.
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