Samsung SCH-A670
Average Ratings
Is it worth it? You decide!
I've had this phone for about a year and a half and over that time period, here is my thourough opinion on it.
Reception
The reception in my area of a popular, large town in Long Island is horrible. That, however, is the con of Verizon, not of the phone- although I have a feeling it is still affected.
Antennea
The antennea is expandable. It is easily bendable and breakable due to this. Must be out all the way to get max repcetion in your area. I find that when (not if) someone cannot hear you due to reception problems, if you flicker the antennea, you gain some reception.
Volume
As you are on the phone, you may raise the volume or lower it. If you cannot hear the other person, putting it louder will also give it a horrible sound, hence not being able to hear them anyway. As far as them being able to hear you, you must speak loud or else the phone will not be able to read your signal.
Battery Life
The battery life will go down if you send textmessages, which is rediculous. Also, with minimal use, the phone WILL get hot and sometimes, due to the heat, your reception will lower greatly.
Camera
Flash is acceptable, camera featered button is annoying. I place this phone in my bag and at the end of the day, I have pictures of the black interior of my purse. Wonderful....
Ring Tones and Vibrate
Ringtones are extremely low, vibrate is weak. I rarely get my calls with or without ring on high or vibe on. I place the phone in my hooded sweatshirt pocket, and dont even feel the vibe. Thats how weak it is.
Features
Large, clear screen with readable icons. Get It Now shortcut is the most annoying because when you open it, it takes a minute or two to load and wont go away until it does! Calculator is fine, alarm ring tone is loud. Nice Calander, only problem is that when you set something on a date, if you go over the memory limit, it doesnt erase those previous dates, so you have to go back and delete them manually. Annoying!
I hope this helped
Good Choice
My husband has a "workhorse" Nokia (cell phones for dummies but they do the job), my daughter has the Audiovox 8900, my son the LG vx6000, and I just bought this Samsung. My complaint with Samsungs in the past is the ringer volume, and this is no exception. But they are quality phones and this is also no exception. (Haven't bought a Moto in years-they are truly crap.) Downloaded ringtones are much louder on this phone so for $2 this was a no-brainer. The Audiovox by far has the best camera, the LG has the most features and options (both are sturdy and take abuse), but this Samsung is not as cheap looking as the others and people just love the picture IDs. As for charging, (please people!) stop charging your battery overnight-you ARE killing it and diminishing the battery life. I have no complaints with this battery, it is comparable to my kids' phones. Any good Verizon retailer will TELL you this.
Pros: small size, nice-looking, sharp, clear colors, flash is nice, professional rings/tones, call clarity is great, no drops where I am - won't even consider leaving Verizon after 11 years...
Cons: don't buy it for the video (who needs video on a phone??) can't duplicate phone #s with other contacts, quiet tones, I can add, subtract, and figure percentages in my head but I love LG's tip calculator anyway...a feature I do miss in the Samsung.
A670 has pros and cons
Overall, I like the A670, especially at the price ($50 for two of them after buy one get one free rebate).
I went with Verizon, which I highly recommend. They have excellent service and coverage. But back to the camera...
PRO's:
- picture caller ID on front LCD
- reception is great
- sound quality is very good
- phone lights up nice and bright
- large screen, easy to use menus
- battery life is decent
- looks good
- has a camera that works
CON's:
- Cant store the same phone number under more than one contact. For instance, my Dad and brother both live at the same home phone. It says number already exists when you try to add the # to 2nd contact. This means you can't put "work" phone numbers in for your 5 buddies that work at the same place. This is dumb if you ask me. I called Samsung and they said it's because picture caller ID would get confused if two contacts had the same number. I suggested they just show the picture of the first contact with that number. Anyway, it's a limitation that I don't like.
- As others have said, the headset rubber cover is impossible to get off if you dont have longer fingernails. I have to use something pointy. I may just remove it.
- The front LCD is near impossible to see unless it is lit. Even then it only stays lit for 5 seconds, and you can't change this.
- Don't expect much from the camera. It is very limited in the quality, especially indoor pictures. Flash produces blinding glow spots in picture. Useless other than for taking pics for photo caller id.
BOTTOM LINE
I paid $50 for two of these phones. My wife and I will use them to send pictures of our baby back and forth. I think it's a great value for the price.
I like it, but it does have its shortcomings
I love the phone's small size. Its battery lasts a long time and it gets good reception. Enough of the good stuff. What you really want to know is where the phone falls short.
I am a PhD student, and I have difficulty following the manual -- very poorly written.
Can't send a contact number without typing the info as a text message.
Accessories are expensive.
Camera button on the outside can activate the camera even if the phone isn't opened (in other words, accidentally), which can run your battery down.
Camera doesn't seem so great to me, though I have no experience with phone cameras, and the fact that this phone had a camera was not a factor in my choosing it. Most pictures seem to have bad lighting (even with the "flash").
Most of the features require far too many buttons. Even the one customizable button has limited offerings, none of which I wanted to use.
Related to the last point: Every thing is difficult. You can't lock your phone without going through a bunch of menus.
You can't use the phone closed with a headseat (as far as I can tell). Closing the phone turns everything off EXCEPT the camera (the one thing I WANT it to turn off).
Even so, I do like my phone.
upgrade from a530, but not really
I am a previous owner of the Samsung a530. I really wanted to get a camera phone that was still pretty small in size. The Samsung a670 seemed to be my only choice, for all the other phones were big and quite bulky. Overall, I wish they would have just added a camera/video function to the a530. there seem to be glitches and other aspects of this phone that makes it seem it might have been a downgrade, rather than an upgrade.
PROS:
* It's still pretty small in size, while it has a camera and video recording function.
* It allows more letters to be saved for the names in the phone book entries.
* It allows your video recordings to be the wallpaper in the phone.
* It allows you to assign pictures to different phone book entries.
CONS:
* It does have the glitch where it will sometimes log incoming calls as call waiting calls, and log them as missed calls at the same time. This doesn't happen all the time, though. Some of my friends who own this phone say it varies by how you pick up the phone call (i.e. if you let it ring too long, if you press the send button to pick it up, if you press the answer button to pick it up, if you have it set up to automatically pick up when you open the folder, etc.). I called the Samsung customer service, and they said that they have been getting complaints about this. They said as of now, there is no new software to fix this problem. They're not even sure if a new software will ever be made. They also said this problem seems to be a regional occurrence.
* I noticed that when I talk on the phone while it is charging, the person on the other end cannot hear me clearly. They say that I sound faint all of a sudden. When I unplug the charger though, they can hear me perfectly fine again.
* The ringtones it comes with aren't that great.
* When I had the a530, the voice mail and text message alerts would ring twice. The a670 will only ring once though. I don't know how to change this, or if it's even changeable.
Awful- simply awful!!!
This is by far the WORST phone I've ever owned. I have never had to claim anything on phone insurance and less than 6 months after getting this phone I had to get a new phone. I was simply talking on the phone one night and the flip part just broke right off- terrible!! The battery life is a mess- it doesn't last long at all. It has an external pull out antenna that is worthless. I treat phones with care because there's nothing worst than a messed up cell, but this model didn't even require abuse for it to damage. I have gone into Verizon 3 times this week and I'm not exaggerating when I say that every time at least 4 people waiting to be helped ahead of me or behind me were in there with broken Samsung A670's: broken flip parts, inaudible phones, frozen keypads, "liquid damage," etc. I WOULDN'T recommend this phone to anyone.
Worst phone ever!
Has Cool features... like get it now, camera, texting, faceplates etc. but this is my third one in a week battery dies in 3 hours... have had bad luck please DO NOT BUY!
so-so phone
Pros:
-Very clear inside display
-Nice, sleek styling
-Decent camera function
-Large enough buttons so that someone with fat fingers like myself can still operate it easily
- Good voice quality
Cons:
-No analog (yes, this is still an issue for more of us than the carriers want to admit)
-Outside display is poor. It is VERY dim. If you hold down the side button quite hard just right for several seconds it will light up for a very brief time, but that is certainly not easy to do in a hurry.
- No speaker phone
- Takes longer to power on than any other phone I've owed
- Included wallpapers are very "cutesy"
- If you want the menu in list style only half of the items are visable at one time
Overall I would suggest the LG6100 over this phone, even though this phone has a nicer internal display.
Average for the Price
The Samsung SCH-A670 is a good phone. There are some things that it should have for the price - like more storage and the ability to send videos therefore making it a true VIDEO PHONE.
PROS
Good camera - better than the LG VX7000 or Mot V710
Crisp clear screen
User-friendly menus
Nice GUI in general
Good sound quality
Get It Now
Nice, easy to press keys
NEUTRALS
Phone is not particularly attractive on the outside, but it's not ugly
Fair battery life
CONS
Not compatible with Mobile IM
This phone REALLY should have a speaker phone
Digital dialing etc is not really necessary if you still have no speaker phone
Camera is VERY slow
One has very VERY few options for external display
Antenna has to be extended
Overall, I recommend it if you don't see any of the cons as major turnoffs. Samsung makes good phones that hold up very well.
loved it
probibly one of the best phones i ever had.. only con was that stupid hands free tab...
This phone is a great phone and i loved it i paid full price when i got it and believe me i never cursed it..
and too all the people companing bout the battery isnt like nokia... IF YOU WANT A NOKIA GO GET ONE... Im tired of everyone posting in every user section about phone batteries not like nokia... If your nokia was so great why did u switch phone's???? guess it wasnt as good as ur making out to be...
