Introduction
I didn’t even know that there is such a phone until it appeared at the red network operator. And then GSM Takács sent one for testing and I didn’t even look at the package for three days, as I have been so much disgusted by the idea of having to take out an umpteenth Samsung slider of it and I even have to write something apt, funny and informative about it.
But deadlines are deadlines and the cruel vision of being lynched by the readers has been before my eyes, so I pulled myself together and took my card out of the Nokia E66 with a sigh, as that seemed much more exciting at firs, and slowly opened the Samsung box.
What does one expect of the phone that costs about €95 EUR in prepaid package? Simple, cheap materials used, compromises regarding the functions, not too exceptional design. M620 tries to disprove some of these, but my preliminary opinion was correct regarding that the phone’s features are not those that humiliate a Touch Diamond.
Otherwise I was surprised. Not very much, just a bit. But this was enough to put the handset back in it’s package without unpleasant memories after the test.
Hirdetés
Exterior
The box already gave me a pleasant feeling, as there is no red color on it. We won’t find a trace of the Live service, neither here, nor anywhere else, which is by the way a real red flag in many people’s eyes, but this time none will be upset as M620 is in a factory state, besides being locked to the Vodafone network.
It is even surprisingly heavy. I have first thought that it’s made of metal, but that’s not true. But then what the hell makes it so damn heavy? Ok, 87 grams are not that much, but at first I’d have said that it’s not more than 70. It makes the impression of a solid, powerful phone that has been properly assembled.
The design is mostly the usual. This time the shapes are a bit more angular, which makes M620 look a bit more serious, and they didn’t even let a steam-roller pass over it, so it became a nice phone of a normal size. The one we had for testing had a dark bronze color (I’m always in trouble with these colors, it could even be metal brown), but there is a lighter edition too. On the front we can find only the usual Samsung schemes and buttons.
On the left there are the volume control keys, while on the right there is the camera’s hotkey and the usual Samsung connector. The sliding mechanism is professional, there is a spring pushing the cover to an open state, there is practically no play, it’s very well assembled. Above the top row of numeric keys we can find the clear key, surrounded by two bonus buttons: one opens up the music player, the other is for Bluetooth – and they work at the speed of light.
There is nothing special about the back, we only get to see the camera after sliding the phone open. The designers were not ashamed of writing in huge red letters that this is a VGA camera. Surprisingly there has been a clear white stereo headset inside the package, the list of accessories includes only a charger besides this.
Basic functions
Well, this has been the happy part; let’s see the more unpleasant stuff. We have an outdated display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and the BlackUI menu system. There are the usual nine icons, with a layout similar to the one on E250. There is a letter “i” looking at us threateningly from the center key of the navigation square, which means that this brings up the WAP browser by default, gosh!
The menu can be colored to white, but that’s about the end of visual customization. There is nothing extra about the contact list, we can store 1000 contacts on the internal memory plus the storage space of the SIM card, and the two are displayed at the same time. It’s a good thing that searching is fast and easy to use.
Messaging supports only SMS and MMS; email is out of the question. Text entry is quite easy with the fine keypad; there is only one strange thing: there is a really slim font used for displaying messages, although we can see bold, easy to read characters in other places. The max size for multimedia messages is 295 KB.
The calendar is no big deal, it has the usual features. We can choose between month, week and day views, entries can be of three types: programs, anniversary, task. M620 can store 100 of each, which will probably be enough for a phone in this price category. We can have five alarm times; there is a basic calculator, a world clock with list view, a stopwatch, countdown timer and unit converter.
Multimedia
We shouldn’t expect much of a VGA camera that has a portrait viewfinder. Although the number of settings is rather high as compared to the resolution, but they are completely useless at the same time, as photography can be used for two things at most in this handset: sending a captured moment via MMS, or attaching pictures to contacts. Still, there are some test pictures for all of you to see.
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The situation is different in the musical part. The white headset that comes in the package is quite nice, but music is somewhat enjoyable through the speaker too, even more if we prefer listening to the radio. M620 has an RDS FM radio that can run in the background and is capable of automatic station search. As opposed to previous news we can’t record broadcasts, at least I didn’t find anything like that in the options.
The microSD card support would make the phone usable as an MP3 player, but this won’t be the best since music can’t runt in the background. It is possible to keep the music playing after closing the phone, but then no other functions can be accessed, we first have to close the music player. There would be no other problems with it, besides having no extras, but the most important features like repeating, shuffled playback, timed shutdown and playlist support are all included.
I wouldn’t mention this separately, but in the case of Samsung it’s important that M620 can ring and vibrate at the same time, and we cannot use only preset effects for message sound, but we can set any audio file for these events. There are, however, no profiles.
Data transfer, battery
As for the network data transfer technologies only GPRS is supported, there isn’t even EDGE. This is a very weak performance, hence the WAP browser being no big deal either. At local level we have stereo Bluetooth 2.0 and although there is no USB cable included in the package, we can use one for moving data.
There is a 800 mAh Lithium-Ion battery under the cover, which can provide energy for three days in normal conditions. This is an average performance in this category.
Just like M620 has the average features of phones in this category – mostly. Since it’s a new phone, its price will probably decrease a bit, even more since there is Sony Ericsson V640i for €5 EUR less, which is a much better phone, from all points of view. The advantage of M620 might be its assembly quality and that its more seriously looking design makes it appear much more advanced than it is.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Samsung M620 has been provided by GSM Takács. Thanks.
The handset can be purchased online at www.gsmtakacs.hu.
Specifications
| Samsung M620 | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 98 x 46.9 x 15.9 mm | |
| Weight | 87 grams | |
| Available colors | silver, black | |
| Display | ||
| Display size | 1.9” | |
| Display resolution | 128 x 160 pixels | |
| Display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 65 thousand | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 1000 entries | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | 200 / 295KB | |
| Internal memory | 18 MB | |
| Memory expandability | microSD (max. 2GB) | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / none | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / present, 2.0 A2DP | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | present | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | none | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Sound recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Samsung BlackUI | |
| WAP / HTML browser | present / none | |
| E-mail client | none | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 2 | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | - | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | VGA, fixed focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | QCIF | |
| Music player | present | |
| Equalizer | none | |
| FM radio | present - RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 800 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 250 hours | |
| Talk time | 300 minutes | |
| Other | ||
| - | ||
