08.03
I’ve had the Samsung Alias 1(SCH-U740) for a while and really liked it, so when the Alias 2 (SCH-U750) came out, I got one immediately. It’s a nice phone, and for new users might be very good, but for someone who had the old Alias 1, it was sort of a disappointment.
This phone is a little ‘chunkier’ than the original and slightly longer. It also has rounded edges as compared to the squared of original version. The hinge seems to have a stronger spring action. This might be because my other phone is older, but it held up better than I originally expected.
The screen on the phone is absolutely beautiful and is quite large. It does making txting and taking photos a very easy experience and even fits a fairly large about of large font txt which is great for those with poor eyesight. Speaking of the camera, it is a very nice upgrade from the camera on my old chocolate and I really appreciate the panorama feature on it.
However, the e-ink keypad leaves much to be desired. There are often blank keys that you long to be able to program with shortcuts, or move the location of things around. The latter would be especially useful since the layout is slightly-to-very different from the keypad of the A1; different enough that A1 users will have to relearn the placement of many buttons. User programmable buttons are the biggest oversight in this iteration of the phone. Very, very sad indeed. Very sad. I can’t stress this enough.
The QWERTY is also not as useful as the A1. As the QWERTY takes up every button, some very, very important and often used buttons are left off the QWERTY and relegated to a second layout including the apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, dash, quote marks, and the parentheses are in yet another layout. In the A1, you would simply hold down a button for these characters as each button pulled double or triple duty. Here, just to type “let’s”, you’d have to press a button to get to the apostrophe, press apostrophe, press the layout button twice to get back to QWERTY. you’ll get quick at it, but it seems really unnecessary. This is a pretty large design flaw. Finally, as a last gripe about it, the OK button is in the middle/top of the keypad and is annoying to reach for with your thumb.
The speakphone on the phone is excellent. I was amazed when I used it in my car and my father who is hard of hearing was able to understand me. The voice recognition software even works well with the speakerphone while outside.
So besides the sadness that is the unrealized potential of the e-ink keypad, there are other disappointment. The camera is better, but they got rid of the flash that the A1 had. They changed the A1’s bad input for a headphone to a 2.5mm jack…so you still need an adapter if you want to use typical 3.5mm headphones, AND can’t use your old adapter. The music player’s interface is still horrible, there is an echo when you talk that the A1 didn’t have (though I like it so far as it makes it clearer to hear if you’re speaking too loudly), you can’t get to the video camera option by hitting the camera button twice (as you could in the A1), the calendar is still horrible to use, I downloaded Street Fighter and the control pad doesn’t really work with it in portrait mode…
Sound quality- Unlike the Samsung renown where I had to keep saying what what and the nokia intruge 7205 with there volume fluxuation issue I actually undertand what the other person is saying without “too much effort” It’s not as good as my LG but at least we are getting someplace. While on this subject let me explain about the half duplex thing. Sometimes if there is total silance yolu hear absolutely nothing until somone talks it’s like a walkee talkee.or another example of this is if a baby is crying in the distant background and the party you are speaking with is not talking the baby’s voice would cut in and out depending on the volume of the voice. With the Samsung Renown the actual words of the other party when speaking got cut off while this one I’m not getting it as much It’s liveable (unlike the renown) (it’s a samsung thing I’m convinced because my Lg8300 never did that.
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