Samsung SCH-A790 / SCH-A795 / IP-A790
Average Ratings
Some day, just not now.
Like most of you, I am also a frequent traveler; mostly to Asia.
I received my phone Saturday, and after a call with tech. support, had it set up properly before departing the US to China. Since arriving Sunday, it has been a nightmare. First, I spent 2.5 hours on the phone trying to both get it to work and use my voice mail.
Well, we got it to work. Seems that you have to manually select networks in âsome countries.â Now, thing is, Verizon is not able to supply a list of countries or with user-friendly instructions where this is the case. Still, it did work, at least temporarily. I happened to take a day trip to a different city, found the same network, but no service. Even after returning to Beijing, the phone is not working. At this time, they (tech support) are working on it but are not sure what the problem is or how to resolve it.
Second issue is voice-mail. Since arriving in China I have not had voice mail at all and Verizon again is not sure as to why.
A few other issues:
- When receiving international calls from some countries (I have has incoming calls from multiple numbers in the US, S. Korea, and Japan) the phone only rings once. This is not enough time to answer the call!
- The included belt-clip holder is really terrible.
- The lack of state-of-the art features (Bluetooth, etc.) is inexcusable.
- Not to nit-pick but the included ring-tones are awful. Canât is just ring?
Verdict, I think it is heading back to Verizon when I return to the office Monday. Yes the rates were/are great but usability is poor.
I will probably stick with a second GSM phone like many of you but will forever be enchanted of one single number to reach me anywhere I go. However, it looks like Verizon only enabled the phone to work in S. KoreaâJapan is still a no-go. So, all-and-all, nut much improvement in country converge from my (particularly Asia focused) perspective.
Verdict Isn't In Yet
I wanted to push the numbers to dial out, but found you have to push the bar below. I'll get used to that I guess.
I too had to be on the line with Verizon for about an hour to get it set up to work properly. Then, after voicemail arrived, I couldn't access the mailbox and Verizon had to delete the messages to reset the mailbox. It is all working now, after much frustration. I hope it works in Asia....
A790
Got the phone today. Very nice. Size, weight, menus, camera its all great.
Some lacking features include speaker phone and ofcourse bluetooth (why cant they just put everything in)
Thanks to the VZ guys (you know who you are) that made this possible.
I Got it
[...] A little bigger and more weight then I like. took 30 min on hold to get it working .
You have to re setup your Vmail and it has a bug, soon to be fixed I am told.
Ed. note: removed pricing info
Lacks GSM capabilities
Samsung created this particular model for Verizon that would suit GSM and CDMA. A majority of the features lean towards CDMA. Even though it has a camera, it won't support GSM and that is a problem if you are abroad as it won't work.
The phone is locked. You cannot slip another SIM card of a different carrier. If you've owned an unlocked GSM phone before and have switched SIM card while in another country; you already know the savings. The A790 is locked into Verizon and when you use it abroad you will be paying the minutes thru the nose. It is very expensive.
This phone is bulky and less battery time. On my recent travel to Asia, I couldn't use more then half of it's features. Luckily, I still had my unlocked Nokia 6200 and just popped in a SIM card and was ready to go.
If you are still thinking of getting this phone, you might want to wait until Samsung fixes all the glitches in this model. Hopefully they can come out with a better phone.
