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| Samsung A990 Phone (Verizon Wireless) | 
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| Brand: Samsung
Category: Wireless
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 6511
Color: Blue
Media: Wireless Phone
Battery Type: Lithium Ion
Display Size: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
Model: B000NPI2T8
UPC: 635753460377
EAN: 0635753460377
ASIN: B000H407JS
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-7 of 7 | | « PREV | | |
 Better than Expected November 28, 2006
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
Although I hate writing reviews, I really wanted to write about the Samsung a990 phone for two reasons: 1. I'm amazed at the advances and quality products Korean companies have been producing (which is a small tiny country in Asia); 2. It's been a very long time since I've been "happy" with a phone, while growing increasingly more and more UNHAPPY with Verizon.
One of the biggest reasons I have stuck with Verizon is because they carried this particular phone. The second reason is because, while Cingular keeps growing and improving, Verizon still gets the best reception everywhere (hands down), in Los Angeles at least. Motorola phones have failed me in elevators, in stairwells, in basements, attics, you name it. However, after having used Samsung cell-phone products for the first time over six years ago, I have not used any other brand. My old Samsungs get reception in all the mentioned places, including, in the trunk of my car, in the garage of my building (yes, I rang myself looking for my phone, and it worked just fine). We then tested the sound quality after being amazed, and it sounds just like it would outside. Having said that, I did not expect any less from this a990, which is a higher version of my previous a670 -- and God only knows how many times I've dropped the phone, crackig it on five different places, but still... works like it did the first time I took it out of the box.
Sound quality and reception is phenomenal, as I've mentioned. The a990 does exactly what it's supposed to do in this area. At 3.2 megapixels, the camera does the job of any other automatic, practical digital camera. If you're looking for something that has incredible autofocus/picture quality, then you might as well get a Digital Canon SLR. However, for a camera phone, this is the best camera you can get. One of the main reasons I really wanted this phone was for the "practicality" feature. Not having to carry a separate digital camera in my purse saves me the bulkiness, and having to flip back and forth. Also, because sometimes I don't carry my digital camera, and when my nephew does something cute, THERE! I pull out my phone, and get great pictures I can load into Snapfish, and order prints whenever I want.
The Swivel Flip portion of the phone is almost useless since the camera lens is on the back of the phone. However, if you were taking a photo between you and your friend (like most people do these days, taking their own photo with an extended arm), this feature is BETTER than useful. On your previous phones, you couldn't tell whether you were in the picture or not, but the a990 allows you to see before you take the picture. However, it is about the only use for it. The best part is that these photos can play on my ipod's slideshow, and no one call tell the difference between a regular digital camera and my phone.
Things I love about it (in no particular order):
1. PRACTICALITY, not having to carry that darn camera around (less bulkiness)
2. Sound quality that is Samsung-like, and it works everywhere.
3. Camera quality and resolution; best of any camera phone.
4. Lots of features and options including voice activated usage. Not like my other phones where I had to program it, but it actually has an AI that recognizes the names. You can say, "Send Text to David" and it's ready to go!
5. Text, Pix, and Video messaging... no big deal.
6. All its slots have covers; the charger has a mini door, so does everything else, including your headphone's jack which has a very nifty and cool slidding door.
Things I don't love about it:
1. Headphone adapter?!?! I am not fascinated by the adapter that needs to be added before you can use a regular headphone; however, this phone was specifically made for a bluetooth set, so I guess it's a fair trade-off. In fact, I purposedly bought a bluetooth headset specifically for this phone, so I can't imagine anyone wanting to purchase a $500 phone (even at the Verizon discounted rate of $250, which is too much for a phone now a days), and still want to use their slinky, analog, headphones. However, it still gets 4-stars simply b/c people will still want to use a headphone to hear music (I personally, don't care for the music feature, this is a camera phone).
2. A little bulkier and heavier than all of my previous Samsung phones (the price you pay for a good camera).
3. The swivel-flip side of the phone, as mentioned, has only ONE use I can think of, and which is not as significant. Also, when the phone's ready for pictures, all the menu options are sideways which makes it a little bit of a hassle to navigate. Think of using your keyboard's control keys (the up, down, sides), while your monitor is lying on its side... yes, a little annoying.
4. Although I love the fact that the lens is protected, I am amazed that it's archaic enough to be manual. You have to slide a button to open the lens, making it feel sort of... disposable, if you know what I mean.
Nevertheless, the benefits outweigh the cons, and the cons aren't significant enough to bother me in any way. It meets/exceeds its intended purposes (phone and camera), hence, the rest is no big deal. I have not tried the V-Cast, but having already become a slave to APPLE's iPod, I have no plans of becoming a V-Cast slave (my nano's much smaller than a digital camera anyway).
Overall: love the phone, even if I'm growing less fond of Verizon.
 The Good the Bad and the Ugly October 7, 2006
57 out of 60 found this review helpful
I got this phone with Verizon service. If you look at the features, it seems like a pretty impressive piece, but if you want to use it for other than just a phone, you have to deal with many shortcomings.
The Phone: Sound is clear, speakerphone is nice and loud so if you have to be looking at the keypad, you can still hear what's going on. I suppose that's also an advantage if you're one of those obnoxious people who like to walk around in public sharing their converstaions with the world. You can attach ringtones and pics to your contacts to individualize them. A headset can be used with a small included adapter or via Bluetooth. The phone can also use voice commands, but I haven't figured that out yet.
The Camera: It won't replace your digital camera, but takes nice pictures. If you don't like shutter lag, you won't like this camera. It's about 2 seconds for the camera to focus after you push the button. You can turn autofocus off, but I have figured out how to focus manually yet. Count on getting a micro SD card if you want to be able to get the pics off your camera. The is no way to transfer pics with a USB cable for this phone yet. It does support Pictbridge and bluetooth printing, but I don't know anyone who prints pictures exactly how they were taken. I need to get them to my computer. You can attach pics to messages, but they are automatically downsized before sending.
The Music: For $30 you buy the Music Essentials Kit, which gets you a USB cable and a stereo headset (and required drivers). I was unable to get it to work on my PC, so ended up using my laptop to transfer music. To do so requires Microsoft Media Player 10 (it will not work with version 11). Once it's working syncing your music to the phone is somewhat straightforward. Media palyer converts your songs to WMA format and transfers them through the cable. I haven't tried to put music directly on a microSD card and plugging it in, but I am told that the phone adheres to digital rights and licensing, but I haven't run into any music that I can't transfer yet (including downloaded songs off of
Usenet). Once you load your music though, it sounds great. Another caveat: If you got this phone, you probably like cool toys, and might be thinking of getting a stereo bluetooth headset to complete the picture. This phone does NOT support the stereo bluetooth profile (in addition to other profiles that might allow your phone and PC to communicate). I believe the only phone that supports stereo bluetooth at this time is the new LG Chocolate.
Conclusion: This could be a really nice phone if Verizon hadn't crippled it in an attempt to make you use their services for multimedia purposes. They want you to pay $1.99 per song from them, and to use their services to share pictures. This would be a great phone if you could easily sync the phone and PC through a cable (or bluetooth), to include music, pictures, contacts, calendar, notes, etc. The user interface could use some improvement too, but that has nothing to do with the phone.
If you want to go with Cingular instead of Verizon, check out the Sony Erricson (?) W810. 10/13/2006 I posted a review of the Sony Ericsson w810i
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