Thread: Review Of The Samsung SCH-U740: A Good Cell Phone With Some Serious Downsides

The Samsung u740 is presented by Verizon Wireless and also sold in Canada by Bell Mobility (as the Samsung Double-Flip). It's a texting cell phone, with its full QWERTY keyboard and a unique hinge that makes it flip upwards in portrait mode (for normal use as a cell phone) or on the side as a landscape display for texting, photo or video use. But don't plan on using the full keyboard for other things, such as browsing the wireless web, it is mysteriously blocked.


The Bottom Line:

Go for the Samsung u740 if you are obsessed with texting and do not mind its limitations and few weakness.


Hardware & Design Quality

Pros:
• Very thin and lightweight design.
• Good 220 x 176-pixel display.
• A good quality deal of dedicated buttons: camera, speakerphone, back/clear and symbols are quickly accessible using a function button.
• The QWERTY keyboard really makes a difference for text messaging. Typing: "The big red ball is still standing still" usually takes about 20 seconds using predictive text input on a regular keypad but took only 15 seconds on the Samsung u740. 25% faster is definitely a plus and your speed gain will be even faster if you use shortcuts and rare words not included in a predictive text input dictionary.

Cons:
• The numeric keypad is part of the QWERTY full keyboard, therefore, keys are very small and you really need to pay attention to dial a number. It doesn't compare to the spontaneity of dialing on a normal, large keypad.
• The unique hinge that makes it flip both ways has some play even if it looks strong enough to withstand sensible use. Bad sign though, only a week into using the Samsung u740, the small door that covers the charger connector wouldn't close tight.
• The QWERTY keyboard has great qualities but the location of the letter "P" is annoying. It's very close to a raised area, making it more difficult to press it. But luckily enough, the letter "P" is not so often used in written English...
Software

Cons:
• The QWERTY keyboard is a half-baked solution. For a mysterious reason, not all programs and / or features are available in the landscape mode -- a very disappointing situation. Take the browser. It would be great to browse in landscape mode and benefit from the QWERTY keyboard to type in a URL and fill out some forms but you just can't. You can only browse the web in portrait format and need to type in text using the numeric keypad and the standard multi-tap system on that tiny numeric keypad: is that hair-splitting enough? Another example: start a text message? Of course, they let you do it in landscape mode. Phew! But while entering the email address, the "Fn" (Function) key doesn't work and won't let you type directly the "@'s" and dots.
Performance
Pros:
• Battery life seemed to live up to Samsung's claims.
• Menus are well organized and respond quickly.

Call Quality


Pros:

• Speakerphone's output volume was strong enough and my interlocutors didn't complain about me sounding echo or remote when using the speakerphone. However, the sound they heard was significantly more strident than without the speakerphone.

Multimedia Experience

Pros:

• The Samsung u740 has a surprisingly good camera. No ground breaking resolution (only a mega pixel camera when some new phones already have 5 mega pixels) but image quality was very good for such a small lens. In particular, the U740 performed very well in the low-light condition picture test, producing one of the best camera-phone pictures I've seen so far. Outdoor images were also good and so were video recordings.