Samsung Delve R800
Average Ratings
Delve Not too shabby...
I have had this phone for about 5 days now, enough time to explore and play. Overall I think this is one of the best phones to be offered by US CELLULAR in ages. I was a die hard LG user in the past, but now with this phone, I am convinced SAMSUNG makes an equal is not better product.
Overall the phone does everything I want and need, except for a few issues, some I see have been addressed already, but for the sake of continuity, I will add them again myself. The BIGGEST complaint I have is the battery time. I charge it overnight religiously and by the time half the day is over and I have sent and received about 15 - 20 text messages and have made about 15-30 mins of calls, the battery is down to it's last bar or two.. this is the MOST ANNOYING part of the phone so far.
I am an avid texter, and overal the options to text are great, even using the handwriting option. However, I ONLY USE T9 predictive texting, and this is the first phone I have had that there is NOT an option to add words to the T9 system.
Besides these few issues, overall I find this phone to be the BOMB in new phones and touch technology!
Interesting Reviews
I don't have this phone as of yet. I've been doing a lot of review reading, searching, etc. while deciding what my next phone purchase will be. I'm almost positive it will be a Delve. I like the features that I'm reading that this phone has. This will be my first touch screen phone.
I currently have a prepaid phone, but I hate the reception in my home. I don't even have one bar most of the time. Another thing I hate about what I have now, is the automated 411 service.
I will write a review for this phone sometime after buying it in less than 2 weeks.
Good Stuff
Pros: good all around user interface. Decent internet speed (with US Cellular) good speaker quality (both speaker phone/music player). GOOD battery life.
Cons: shuts down randomly while receiving multiple text messages/ browsing the internet and receiving a text message at the same time.
Whoever talks down on the battery life doesn't know what their talking about. While the actual bars do go down quite quick(within a day) the last bar last a LIFETIME. I used my Delve with no charge on 1 bar (battery life) for 4 days. While it might deceive you with the rapid loss of batter bars, for whatever reason the last bar WILL last at the LEAST 3 days. This is all around a great phone for the price
Delve=Satisfactory Rollercoaster
Pros: Nice Camera, Nice Mp3 Player, Some decent included apps & widgets, size & weight (fits perfectly into my side-pocket on my jeans for quick & easy access)
Cons: Battery Life, handwriting to text (a joke), not customizable, Custom Ringtones nearly blocked out, crappy navigator, internet touchscreen.
Starting with the pros, I do like the included apps, the ones that I consider my favorites are the mini-player, and the myCast weather. The size, shape, & weight of the phone somehow just perfectly fit right into my side pocket in my carpenter jeans, even with the hard case on. That I think is just co-incidental.
Now onto the cons, the delve is a battery monster, then again I have a laptop which does no better. The second and most recent disappointment is no ability to add custom applications or widgets. If there is a way I haven't found out how yet. I keep in touch with friends who are not located in the U.S (i.e a good friend in Malaysia) in my opinion this phone is not a fully functioning communication device. The custom ringtones were nearly blocked out, but with my persistent attempts I was able to find a way to send custom ringtones to my phone. Another problem is the Navigator, this one really gets my goat sometimes. More or less, let's just say that I was attempting to get to a meeting on time & needed directions on the fly, since Google Maps doesn't work with my phone, I needed to resort to the Navigator. About 100 ft from my destination it told me to turn left & my destination would be on my right. I turned left, Looked to my right & saw nothing but trees. I kept traveling until I ran out of road. Turned around & found my destination was actually a RIGHT TURN & to my left. I double checked it several times & it sucks. It also is laggy & will sometimes scream at me that I'm off track when I'm traveling straight. The last con is the handwriting to text box. No one thought it wise to make it adaptive?? I NEVER use this function for my phone.
Worst Phone Ever
Cons: The only problem with this phone is that it has horrible battery power; the phones loses a notch just by you txting for like 15-20 minutes, that sucks.
Then on top of that I havnt had tha phone for atleast 2 months and the keys are already locking up, and I have to go and get the phone reset; so I should of just went with my 1st choice and got the Blackberry Curve. Its true what they say; that us cellular has gud plans, but Shi**ty phones.
Nice Phone
I waited a full month before putting up the review the phone is very nice the touch screen is very responsive i put a 8 gig card in for my music and i use my bose headphones it sounds very nice. the battery life is not a problem to me i'm a phone user not a phone abuser. the voice sync is awsome works always and is very fast also i have sync in my ford car so both go together very well i only have one problem with the phone the ringer is not loud enough i've missed a few calls but all over this is a very good phone and i'm also very happy with us cellular service they have come a long way they were once a welfare phone service but with so much compition around they had to get with it so yes i would recommend this phone to anyone wanting to go with us cellular.
Delve
I work in the Wireless business and thought this was going to be one of Samsungs best so far..... Not even close. When I insert my memory card, the phone does continuous power cycles until I remove the card. Also, if I change any of my message settings, the phone won't hold my outbox until I do a reset on the phone.
I do like that it's a touch screen, but they battery life is terrible. And trying to text on the qwerty is a pain in the butt.
The phone doesn't have a built in stylus holder, so it's easy to loose it.
The camera switches to camcorder if you hold the button to long, which can get very irritating.
Trying to hold the phone with your shoulder is almost impossible because it slides and moves easily.
Any time you drop it, you will feel like having a heart attack because of the screen.
It's not a bad phone, but it was a MAJOR disappointment.
Good Phone If You don't mind getting nickle and dimed...
The phone itself is really nice. I liked the way almost everything worked on it. My main complaint about the phone, at least the alltel version, is completely locked down. Using about every method I can come up with to get ringtones on the phone for free seem not to work. You cant save from a text message, email, download direct via the web, or access via memory card and that is a key factor for me. I like having current custom ringtones and I am not the type to pay money for them. The Delve's software is locked up tight like for knox, lol. Also it comes with an included usb cable, which will not let u access content on the phone and I had to mess with for a while to even be able to access my media card. It's just not what its portrayed as, which is a smartphone, and yes you do have to pay the smartphone price on the bill so I would expect to be able to do anything I can do on a blackberry or windows mobile phone. Realiztically its another kids toy in the Iphone category, altho I still think I would take it over the Iphone since it does have almost anything you can look for in a phone, they just make u pay for it. All in All its great for multimedia text pict video messaging etc. Just wish it had the abilities or customization I am used to in a phone at this point. As a final not people have complained about reception and battery life. I would say these are two of its strong suits, battery lasted well over a day, which is great for a media phone being used in that respect, and reception on it was really good anywhere I went, even places I previously had been losing calls.
Strong Samsung
I am an Alltel customer and have always been disappointed with the choice of phones that Alltel had. However the Delve looked like a solid phone and I really had no choice but to renew my contract. I decided to go with the Delve and have had for about 2 weeks now.
I am a current college student, I use my phone for the social side (pretty heavy, 4000 texts, decent amount of talk time, and a good amount of time on the web), and I also have to use a good deal of voice for where I work. And I have to say the Delve has been much better then I thought it would be.
Pros:
-Music player (sounds great)
-3.5 head phone jack
-smooth texting
-HTML web works amazing for me. It is kind of a point of view thing as the phone does not srink the page to fit the phone, but that is how I like it.
-GREAT touch screen, I almost always select what I mean to select.
-Solid Camera (its only a 2.0 but it looks/works perfect for me)
-Wigets
-Text messages can be displayed in a Chat format
-Phone lock works well,haven't called anyone from my pocket
-Over all everything works very smooth for me which is really the biggest factor in a touch screen phone.
Cons-
-short life on the battery is annoying but usually lasts me about a day, so I can get around a charger. So I wish it would last long, but for my heavy use I was surprised it lasted that long.
-Ascending ringer is very annoying. It only does this on phone calls not text messages. However I've been told they are working on an update for it.
The Cons for me aren't really cons, just more of small things that annoy me. So far I love this phone and I am hoping it moves over well to the Verizon service.
