Samsung Sway U650
Average Ratings
The Phone is Fine
I think flaws have been pretty well stated. The bottom line is that every phone has flaws. Yes the battery is not that great but buy a extended battery or car charger. The texting is slow but it get's the job done. I have had many phones, ENv2, Voyager, Dare etc..and I have to say this probably one of my favorites(and yes those phones have flaws too).
Nice design, bad execution
Recently in the market for a new handset with my NE2, I decided upon the Sway. Unfortunately, I chose to get it sight unseen via the Verizon Wireless site the week it was released. My requirements were fairly simple: ease of texting, music playback, decent camera. Having no need for internet connectivity, lack of EVDO did not concern me. So, not having a slider before, I thought I'd try this one out.
So, with that said:
Pros:
-large, clear screen
-decent ringer selection
-camera takes decent shots
-can be customized in ways most other phones in this price range cannot (additional fonts, keypad sounds, etc.)
-decent music player and interface (not the standard VZW media player)
-very pleasant display theme options
Cons (and these are huge, it's why I took the phone back):
-SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE. First, texting. It's very, very slow. You will get well ahead of the phone, without even trying. This goes for type ahead, as well as backspacing. It's very annoying. Change your mind on the text? You will be three keystrokes ahead in the "Cancel, Don't save" path before the phone gets there. It's that bad.
-More software: The rest of the menu, while not as bad as the texting, is still somewhat slow and buggy. I received a nasty software exception when simply trying to switch themes. It said Div by Zero 0x. Whatever that means. I had to remove the battery to fix.
-Ringer volume. While the ringtones themselves are ok, the volume is not. Even at the loudest setting they were hard to discern across a room
-Locking. It locks automatically when you close the slider. It unlocks by pressing the Ok button twice. However, this is so easy to do I've often made calls by accident w. the phone in my pocket. Very ineffective.
I couldn't risk the software issues not getting addressed, so I returned the phone and ended up with a Moto.
Don't like it
I've never had a Samsung before, only Motorola and LG of late. I bought the Sway about 2wks ago after returning the LG Dare and am hoping to return the Sway for the LG enV.
PROs:
-Good service and reception (Verizon in Alexandria, VA/Washington DC area).
-Good earpiece volume
-Good ringer volume
-I like the keylock when the phone is closed
CONs:
-Camera doesn't appear to zoom
-Battery life is HORRIBLE!! It has been fully charged and goes down a bar after using it minimally. I can't imagine how the battery would be after a year or so if it's already weak when it's new. I put the backlight setting on the lowest (7sec) in hopes of keeping battery life but it still went down quickly.
-Text goes in very slow and delayed so if you text quickly, sometimes your letters overlap and you have misspelled words. Also, if you hit 'send' before a letter or puntuation is finished, it'll send the wrong thing. This never happened on my LG phones.
-The added graphics (smiley face, etc) look horrible and it's hard to tell what they are, looks like something from DOS.
-Can't really talk with slider shut because the sound is distorted for people on the other end (the microphone is in the curve underneath the top of the phone and is covered with slider shut).
Haven't used it for music so I can't comment on that. I'm hoping to get the LG enV delivered in a couple of days, that has gotten awesome reviews.
This Phone Is Great!!
I've love this phone since Day 1!! It's a very cool phone. It's not all fancy and what not like the touch phones out today, but it holds it's own. I'm a slider phone kind of guy so when I saw this come out I had to try it. I like the look and design of it, the color and material doesn't look like something that will start flaking and chip off in a few months. I was an LG man, only owned LG's for my past 5 phones. I had the LG Venus, good phone but the touch screen or horrible and the phone started glitching like crazy. So I figured I'd try out Samsung. This phone is nice, you can have the phone slid close and still have speaker phone on and still watch your videos. The only thing I hate about this phone is that you can only send ONE picture at a time, at least I haven't found a way around it. Other than that it's very good. The speaker phone isn't the best but better than most. The call clarity is great. The pictures it takes is amazing. The music player is good as well. Also the battery seems a bit on the low life side, but I have a wall charger and car charger, so it don't phase me. Plus soon I'll have the extended battery, so it won't be a problem no more. I'd recommend this phone to anyone who needs a phone!!
u650
I have only had the phone for 4 days, at this point, it has been great!! the sound is exceptional, compared to any other phone I ever owned, the batt level is solid, dropped a bar today,, the camera is much better than my moto razr2, with a little help from Verizon I managed to get the talking phone working,, it is slim,, clear screen ,, the slide is smooth, if you are looking for a phone,,, that is just a phone!,, for the price it seems right
Pretty decent, but with one big annoyance ... Back it goes.
For someone who already owns a recent Verizon handset, there really is no compelling reason to run to a VZW store to pick one of these up, especially at the current $69 price point with 2-year contract. However, for someone looking for a low to midrange slider, it isn't half bad, and it'll a better value once the price drops a bit.
The two most important things about a phone in my opinion, audio quality and reception, are very good. Earpiece audio was loud and clear, and reception was on par with my Motorola RAZR (though 1xRTT only, not EV-DO). The exception is the speakerphone, which was significantly distorted even at medium volume. The screen is decently clear and bright, though a bit duller than my RAZR, and the numeric keypad, though fairly compact and without much separation, is pretty easy to dial and text with. The physical looks of the phone are okay, though a bit more plasticky than I would have expected from the online photos. It makes the phone look a bit toy-like. Also toy-like are the ringers. There really is not a single ringtone on here that sounds professional, even the "Business Tone". VZW Default Tone, which is hideous, is likely the best you can do on the Sway. On a more positive note, I was pleased that the Openwave browser has been ditched in favor of Access, so the Sway can log into such rogue SSL sites as American Airlines. :o)
The dealbreaker for me is the lack of a thumb grip, rubbery area, or something similar to push your finger against when sliding the phone open. So your only two grip options are applying thumb pressure to the D-pad/OK button cluster, which causes the calendar or Mobile Web to pop up the second that the phone is opened and the keypad auto-unlocks, or to the lower edge of the glossy screen where the carrier logo is, which inevitably leaves a big sticky thumbprint. This was truly an awful design on Samsung's part, and I can't believe this didn't come up in user testing before the phone was released to the public.
I think I will like it
I use two phone for two separate business, one is a LG Dare and just got the Sway two days ago. The sound quality of the Sway is better than the Dare, but the slider is a little awkward to slide up. Camera quality very good. All in all I am satisfied.
the sound
ok well first off...its a great little phone...i really like it. ya the battery life kinda sucks but oh well...and the text speed isnt the greatest..but i'll deal. but i dont know why...the sound just completely died...when it rings on high all it does is vibrate and buzz but not a ringer buzz just an i dunno buzz...i cant hear ring tones...speaker phone is done...so im going to vzw store to fix it
Exactly What I Wanted
I've had a Virgin Mobile Kyocera for the last 4+ years. This should give you a little perspective as to where I'm coming from on this review. I don't have a lot of phone experience so I don't think I am as picky as your normal reviewer/user is.
That being said, the only way I was going to actually carry a phone is if it was very thin and light. I wanted one that would be as unobtrusive as possible and fairly easy to use.
The SWAY fills the bill. Its the thinnest phone currently being sold by Verizon.
Cons....Nothing to put your thumb against to slide phone. I can get my thumbnail into the edge of the slider and push up and it works great with virtually no problem. You can also use the bottom of the D pad, which does not get me into any applications once the phone is open unlike a previous reviewer. Speaker is horrible...but I don't intend to use it. Bundled ringtones are horrible but are plenty loud to hear across the room, especially the old style Bell analog ringer. I broke down and ordered a $2.99 French phone ringer tone from Verizon. I have the volume down halfway and can clearly hear it even though its sitting in the backpack behind me. I don't text so the slow software is not a problem but you do have to be careful hitting the keys as the keypad is not long on space.
PROS.... Great looking. Screen is nice and sharp. Good customization features. Battery life seems OK. Build quality looks and feels good. Camera seems good. I don't even care about the camera and would rather it didn't have one, but I took a quick pic of the dog lying down in a semi dark room and it came out decent. I like the voice recognition. Seems to work great except you have to wait for the instructions to finish before saying anything which holds up the process of making a call.
All in all, I did my research and got exactlty what I wanted. Very happy.
loved the phone, but battery life truly terrible
pros: great signal, fast send/receive/download, beautiful screen, lots of useful and even cute personalization options, VERY thin.
cons: battery life! text speed
regarding my point of view, i use a cell phone for voice calls, texting, and taking and occasionally sending pics. i have no land line.
this really is a truly fantastic phone except for my two cons, one minor, and one very major.
the text speed is minor, but quite noticeable. i have a busy job, noisy environment, text is IMPORTANT. phone seemed to be very fast in all else, but when i texted i could actually get a word or two ahead of what was on the screen. enough to make mistake correction annoying. and because the phone remembers which word you last used with a combination of keys, that usually meant not a spelling error, but the wrong word entirely. (my lg chocolate gave me the same order every time. type "of" change to "me". type "good" change to "home". every time the same. no need to look.) deleting was more annoying, because if i didn't count how many times i pushed the clr button, it'd be a couple seconds before i knew how far back i deleted.
i could have lived with the slow text. but not the BATTERY LIFE. on a very slow night the first week i had the phone i exchanged 6 simple text messages, spoke for just 6 min on the phone. no other use but to check the time now and then. and yet 7 hours after i took it off the charger, it was down to half charge.
i tried swapping the battery. no change. exchanged for another hand set (maybe i had a dud). 26 minutes of talk time on the new handset knocked me down to half charge again. please note that i was in an excellent signal area (no searching for signal), and i had the screen brightness all the way down.
as much as i loved this phone, i realized that if i couldn't use the phone for fear it would die before i got home, then it was useless to me. i took it back. :(
i got a motorizr. it stays charged. it works great.
