Samsung MM-A900 / SPH-A900 / Ace
Phone Scoop Review
Mar 19, 2006 by Eric Lin
In-depth review of the razor-thin Samsung A900 for Sprint.
with Video Tour read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
A Winner!
I was one of the first to purchase this phone and love it! I've had more Sprint phones than I care to recall and after several weeks of usage, I can only highly recommend this phone!
Here's the run down:
PROS
**Excellent reception
**Cool form factor
**Data speeds are amazing!
**Screen is unbelievable! Best I've ever seen!
**Impressive camera
CONS
**T9 input isn't great
**Flaky charging port--located on side.
For those reading all reviews here, take a look at this phone up close. I've not had a single issue with my Blade and am loving it!
Another Samsung Winner the A900(Blade)
My title says it all! The a900 from the first time I powered it on and saw that beautiful QVGA screen and heard the music from the start up, I new I was sold. This phone is sleek, thin, with weight to it. If you are a business man this phone is for you. If you are just a avg. Joe like me than this phone is for you. If you are a woman who likes something sexy then this phone is for you. So far I like everything about it. My pluses are:
Internal Screen 10
External Screen 10
Voice Clarity 10
Key pad 8
Build 10
Size 10
Battery life 7
Power Vision 10
Pic quality 8
Ease of use 9
So far my only minus would have to be no removebale storage Trans flash card. You know what who cares this phone is AWESOME! It is replacing my sanyo 5600 and I really liked that phone. As soon as Sprint releases this phonoe you have to get it. It is a phone that so far in many minds has already blown the razr right out the door! You wont be dissappointed unless you can't live without the trans flash card.
Stay away from the A900!
When I first got this, I was so excited. After a few days, I wanted to throw this thing at the wall! I am definetly taking this phone back! What a dissappointment! The features on the phone are great (don't get me wrong), but what good is a phone with great features and poor battery life? I suggest you stay away from this phone until Sprint puts out a better, more upgraded version. Also keep in mind that half of the reviews on this phone come from people who have simply fooled around with it for a few minutes, not people who have owned it.
Pros:
- Amazing graphics
- Lots of memory
- Media player is easy and fun to use
- Phonebook can hold up to 500 contacts
Cons:
- Very poor battery life
- Bad reception
- Phone will freeze once in a while (I've had this phone for 8 days it has already froze 4 times)
- Speaker is awful. I downloaded ringtones from 3gforfree.com and they sound horrible! Before I got this phone I had the Sanyo 5500 and the ringtones on the 5500 sounded a lot better
- The camcorder is another thing I don't like about this phone. The length of the video depends on how much memory you have left.
- It's only dual band! Come on Samsung--you can do better than that.
Looks->Great! Function->Avg
1=below average
5=excellent
Looks: 5
Size: 5
Build Quality: 5
Internal Speaker Quality: 5
Internal Speaker Volume: 3.5
Keypad: 5
External Speaker Quality: 3
External Speaker Volume: 3.5
External Display: 5
Internal Dispaly Size: 5
Internal Display Clarity: 4
Menu Appearance: 5
Menu Speed: 4
Mp3 Music Quality: 3.5
Camera: 4
Video Recorder: 3
RF: 4
Slick Phone/Sick Phone
I couldn't believe how rugged this phone felt. Much more so than the Razr. I loved the huge screen and low profile as well. The front mini screen is color but looks initially black and white. I do have some reservations about this phone however.
OK Pro's and Cons
Pros
Slim profile
Stylish Design
Metal Housing
Responsive Buttons/easy to use
Bluetooth!
Earpiece nice and loud, clear sound received.
Cons
Battery Life *unless you are planning on using bluetooth, forget it*
Menu Screen is a bit apple-like/trendy
People complain that I sound like I am talking through a pillow.
Big internal screen gets oily fast, no protection, should come with 3m label.
Menu not that intuitive, although plainly labelled.
Not comfortable at all next to face
Speakerphone maxes out around 7 then gets garbly
Internal speaker is aimed away from the user and is not that loud.
No ringtones came with it.
Camera/video poor
Only comes with 50mb of internal memory, no chance to upgrade, doesn't use flash card.
Overall I am sad to say that while intially I was "wowed" by the look of the phone, I am going to be returning it. I'm just not happy with it and I wish that someone out there would make a phone that lasts and has a battery life of 8 hours.
Overall 8.5, pending better battery
I have been using the phone for voice and bluetooth-based data. Both work great. For phone conversations the Motorola HS850 Bluetooth headset connected immediately and has worked flawlessly. I have set up data connectivity to an HP iPAQ 4150 via Bluetooth and it syncs without fail.
Now I can get rid of my crackberry and get down to one less device.
All this comes at the cost of battery life, but with an extended battery, I think the phone will work out very well.
Pro's:
Great Screen
"Full-featured" Bluetooth
Size
Menu's
Speakerphone included (above avg. volume)
limited mp3 capability
VoiceMode for texting. (Works really well for me. I hate T9.
Con's:
Battery life
Speakerphone clarity. (drops at high vol.)
lack of a storage card. (I use a iPOD Nano for music, so not a big deal.)
Syncing to PC should actually work with the cable. Where's some good software Sprint?
Camera - 3x zoom would be nice. Not a significant issue personally.
Overall I am pleased. Great combination with any Bluetooth enabled HP iPAQ for email sync and web browsing.
Unacceptable flaws
I am returning my A900. I waited for months for this phone, paid FULL price ($390.04), and was SO DISAPPOINTED.
I tried hard to make this phone work, but the Bluetooth problems and poor battery life have made me return it.
Pros:
- Good reception & limited dropped calls.
- Very thin & stylish design
- Beautiful screen
Cons:
- Bluetooth headset problems. Randomly, my headset would start ringing in my ear OVER my conversation. I would be on the phone with a client and it would start ringing. I would push buttons on the headset trying to get it to stop and eventually hang up on the person. Then I would call them back and it would happen again. Major flaw.
- Bluetooth vCard transfer problem - I wanted to transfer a set of my Outlook contacts to the phone using Bluetooth & vCards. I spent hours trying to get this to work, reading forums, talking to tech support, and could not make the transfer work reliably.
- Poor battery life. From a full charge I would be down to 1 battery bar before noon w/normal usage. If I didn't recharge during the day, by 2-3pm the phone is dead.
- Clumsy text message typing - The T9 function on this phone is screwed up. It takes 3 or 4 button pushes to find the ! and ? characters. Example, to get a ? you have to hit 'Options', 'Symbol', right, right, 3. Normally I just hit the '1' and 'next', but not on this phone.
- Picture mail and other power vision services. I tried going through the sign up on the phone and it got stuck at new password. I also couldn't do the over the air update to the software. Not sure if this is the phone problem or Sprint.
- Overall poor menu/software design.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS PHONE. I wrote this review to hopefully save someone from making the same mistake I did. I think I'm going to look at buying a Treo and just deal with the size.
Buyer Beware!!!
For years I've been pretty satisfied with my Motorola phones like the v600 and the RazrV3. When word came out that Sprint was going to unvail a phone similar in style to the razr but with almost unlimited features, I was beside myself. Almost immediately I surrendered to the Cingular cancelation fee and joined the Sprint team.
Having been an employee in the business for years I am aware that Sprint's coverage area is fairly decent, but the fact still remains, their customer service remains at the bottom of the list. I was still willing to do what ever it took to own the phone that offered live T.V. and played MP3's. And of course let's not forget the megapixel camera and video capture.
A few days later and 500 dollars poorer I was extremely excited to try out my new phone!
In a nutshell we could say I was supremely dissapointed by this over hyped and over priced piece of technology.
- Sure the phone has a mega pixel camera but without setting the camera on a tripod, the picture came out fuzzy.
- A phone with a 65,000 color external display seems nice untill you find out it helps suck the battery life out of your phone faster that you can say Samsu.....
- And of course let's not forget about the phone with the ability to hold a large number of of "quality" pictures and MP3s. Good luck trying to store the MP3's to your phone from you PC when the phones user guide doesn't even tell you how. After battling with store employee's for a few days and with Sprints' customer service for many hours I was finally able to move my MP3's to my phone. The total amount of songs my Samsung A900 was able to store was ..........1. Imagine the look on my face, it was priceless!
Please folks, take the advice from someone who's not only in the cellular phone business but happens to know it very well, don't buy this phone. At least wait until the phones price lowers a few hundred...it shouldn't be that long. I'll have my A900 availble on Ebay until then.
I'm returning the phone
I've had the phone a week and I'm just not happy with it. I came from a Sanyo SCP-5500/VM4500 (whatever you wish to call it) and I thought I had problems with that phone.... The reception from this phone is pretty bad. Where I would have three to four bars on my Sanyo, this phone is lucky to have one. The battery life is pretty bad too. My Sanyo still has the original battery from two years ago and it holds a better charge than this phone. I was all excited about this phone since I had made it two years and got to take the $150 discount from Sprint. I am 50/50 on the speaker phone. It appears to be full duplex which is a plus over the Sanyo, but the speaker is weak, weak, weak... Very distorted at audible levels.
Pros:
Sprint TV
EVDO
Functionality
Speakerphone (can talk and hear at the same time)
Cons:
Battery!
Reception
Speakerphone
Rushed to market
my recommendation to potential buyers: get over the cool look and feel of this phone and think about the following before you buy:
1. no expandable memory - and you thought the Rokr was bad for only being able to hold 100 songs! If you load your own mp3s you may be able to get 20-25 on here.
2. has a data cable but you can't synchronize any Outlook information - there's no software to do this. I haven't tried bluetooth yet but I've read where it will only send one contact at a time.
3. battery life is piss-poor horrible.
4. depending on which direction the camera lens is pointed, images appear upside down when you start the camera. The camera software is too dumb to know which direction the lens is pointing so you need to press an extra button to make the image flip.
5. mass file storage is a nice addition but to what end? there's less than 50mb of avail space.
