Samsung SCH-A530
Average Ratings
Best phone as of yet
Despite some minor design flaws, it is without a doubt Verizon's best phone to date, period!
It solves two of the biggest problems with the LG4400!
1) NO remind and beep
2) No vibrate and ring.
Go get it now!
Reminds me of the a310
I have the phone, its like a color a310, I mean its great, small, comes w/ extra battery and a few other nice accessories. But its not tri-mode, come on its 2003 and they produce an all digital phone. Also its champagne, its looks like a v60i, they should have made it available w/ faceplate's. Also finally they put a regular ring tone on the phone which is good. Graphics are great, I really don't understand the purpose of outside color caller ID, great idea but what about battery life. Overall its a a310 w/ get it now and a color screen, if it was tri-mode i would probably like it more.
My new favorite phone
Welll, I think I have found a phone that I'll keep for more than 6 months. This is the best phone I've used. Battery life is great (especially for a color phone), menus are very intuitive, screen looks great. Only downside is the yellow color...
Pretty Decent
First had a couple of issues. First phone had NO sound more than 50% of the time so they replaced it. Second phone barely had an audible ring. One I have now is good though. Was told that it was typical with the phone...
Great little phone. Contrary to others, LIKE the gold color.
Only don't like that there are very few installed ringtones, there are no games, and no speakerphone.
Great Phone
I've had this phone for two years. It's beat up, but still works well.
PROS: It has good sound quality and good reception. The battery life is good enough -- spectacular if you get the extended battery.
My favorite things about the phone are the size and feel of it. If you keep your phone in your pocket all the time, like me, you'll love the fact that this phone is tiny. Even after two years, the phone is solid, and the top flips open and shut smoothly. It's able to survive an occasional drop or fall.
CONS: If you want features, this isn't the phone for you. Vibrate and ring both could be stronger and louder. Also, text messages don't always go through, although this could be "The Network." Option to attach faces to contacts is stupid and takes up way too much space when calls come in, forcing text to display at the bottom of the outside screen in tiny letters. Contacts don't have nearly enough space for names. Calender is pointless because you run out of space so quickly. Also, if you talk on it for an extended period of time, the handset gets hot.
All these problems are secondary, though. Overall, the phone makes and receives calls well.
Very buggy phone
I've had a lot of problems with this phone. Problems that are very frustrating, to put it mildly.
The programming on this phone is very badly planned. For example, there is a limited number of calender dates you can put into your planner. However, there is no feature to simply delete all your old events. So when you hit the maximum number of events for you calender, you have to go back and delete each event one by one. This is a very time consuming process, considering the phone takes you back to the main menu after each deletion.
Don't plan on using this phone as a clock either. For some reason, there is no button to simply light up the outside LCD screen (it is impossible to read without it being backlit). To make it worse, Verizon has programmed it so there is no clock or date on the main screen; to get that you have to close the phone and look at the small outer screen (which only stays lit for 1 or 2 seconds).
Also, the backlights on the screen dont work at the worst times. I can't tell you how many times I've spent punching out a long text message only to have the screen turn black right before I send it. Very annoying. Also very annoying when you cannot tell who is calling you (and you have to open the phone to turn on the backlight, effectively making it impossible to screen calls)
The reception on this phone is mediocre at best. People often complain about the quality of my voice over the phone.
However, this is a very small and lightweight phone. As everyone else has mentioned, this phone gets very hot very fast (giving you a very bad case of greasy phone ear), but if you can live with that, its not a bad looking phone to use.
Pros:
Small and compact
Clean look (i.e. not stupid looking like most other cell phones)
Cons:
Cheap software
Cheap screen
Bad call quality
Gets very hot and greasy
Good Short-Term; Horrible Long-Term
Not the worst phone in the world but definitely not the best.
"Positive" Features: the To-Do List and the Countdown. Nice color front display and main display. There are icons available which you can assign to the phone numbers in your phone book (which can carry 999 phone numbers if you need it). The shortcut buttons are also helpful.
Negative Features: Unreliable. I've had to exchange for a new phone (of the same kind) at least 3 times and a friend of mine, 5 times at least. After a while, the reception gets bad and there was a point where it didn't send calls and i wasn't able to receive any (the other line couldn't hear me). Also, I'm a big text-message person and I'm only able to text 2 people out of my whole phone book (others cant see my text at all). And also, the front color screen just stopped working one day..i didn't drop it or anything, it just...blanked out.
Overall, nice features within the very small Chic compact phone but it is unreliable when it comes down to making calls and sending messages (which is..the whole purpose of a phone).
Not Too Bad
Overall, this is sweet little phone for the price and size. Color is awesome, rings pretty loud. I have service with VZW out of the Midwest and voice quality is great. There are times when it takes a while to connect but if you keep the phone on constantly a quick power-cycle fixes that. I have gone as far as Las Vegas hardly ever had a problem with dropped calls. I don't like the fact that you can't download hi fi ringers to this phone though because it really has a nice style but it depends on what you want the phone for.
The biggest issue I've had is that I have had to replace it twice because the sound goes out on the ear piece. Having to constantly use a Huntsville, while safer, can be annoying. VZW has seemed to improve on the phones and options that they offer though and I really do like the Samsung and Audiovox (9100) and Kyocera (3035) phones. Let's see what I can get into next...
PROS:
menu easy to navigate
small size, light weight
great color on dual display
reception is really good even though phone is
not tri-mode and I have traveled through
"analog" areas"
great alarm although the phone has to been on
for it to work (some motorolas don't)
ringtone quality is excellent
CONS:
phone keypad does get hot after about 15 mins
will power cycle itself at times
games freeze in the middle of playing
standard batt doesn't hold up well after
prolonged use and extended batt is HUGE
compared to the phone
no hi-fi :(
A very average phone at best
I am very surprised that most reviews of this phone that I've read do not mention one of the more annoying problems with it...
It gets HOT HOT HOT if you use it for long periods of time. I use my cell for business, I am taking calls constantly and this phone heats up very rapidly. Never had a phone with that problem before. It is a pain to get this phone into "silent" mode. Yes, you can turn the ring off pretty easily, but good luck navigating through a multitude of menus trying to get your voice mail message indicator turned to silent as well. Nothing like sitting in a meeting thinking your phone is on silent mode and then have it blast a tune because you got a new voice mail message. Stupid. The phone does not drop many calls (Phoenix, Arizona) but I think the voice clarity is nothing to write home about. Average at best. There are times when the volume is too low, even at the highest setting. My friend has a (non-flip) cheap Nokia phone that I can hear considerably better on. Verizon's get it now feature is expensive but fun to mess around with. It's a shame that this phone does not have a speakerphone. The quality of the ringtones is only average. Sometimes when you dial a number the phone just sits there and either takes way too long (30 seconds) to connect the call or doesn't connect at all. Not sure if this is the fault of the phone or the carrier (Verizon) but I have never had this problem before. All in all, the phone was a disappointment. I'm locked in for two years... oh well.
Pros:
Nice compact size
Volume control on the side of phone
Good size phonebook (999 numbers)
Good grouping method in phone book (home, work, cell, fax, email for each name)
Doesn't drop many calls
Cons:
Phone heats up WAY too hot WAY too quick
Only average voice clarity
No speakerphone
Menus are overly complicated
Volume sometimes too low
Worst Phone
I've had my a530 for 10 months now, I purchased the phone cause I thought it was so small and cute (except for the color). After I had it for a couple of months I started to experience dropped calls almost every day. I have Verizon which is a good service provider however my phone had the worst reception. And just last month is when I started to experience even more problems with the phone, I started to have trouble hearing conversations and then all of a sudden the volume in the ear piece went out. So my insurance sent me another a530 and with this so called "new phone" I would miss all my calls cause the ringer was so low, even with the volume set to the highest setting. So again I was sent another a530 which I was having the same problem with the ringer volume (low) and in the middle of calls the phone would shut off or freeze and drop calls. I regret I ever purchashed the samsung A530 and I guess thats why the phones have been discontinued, well now they are sending me a LG VX 4500 I hope with this phone I will have a better experience.
