Samsung SCH-A950
Average Ratings
works great as a phone!
I bought this phone used because I had tried it out a long time ago at full retail new but realized $270 is too much for a phone so I sent it back. After using different phones since I realized how great it was so I bought it used on Ebay for a fraction of the retail cost while it was out.
Pros:
=Sleek looking phone, love the red
=LOUD!
=Has the best mic on a phone I've ever come across, picks up your voice great on calls, while recording with the tv on it caught ever word someone was saying perfectly, usually the phones i've used had bad (motorola) or okay (lg) mic noise pickup, this was by far the best.
=Camera and video is good, these phones will never be great at this sort of thing but this is better than other phones I've used.
=Durable, great build quality.
=Loud speakerphone (important for me)
Cons:
=Doesn't pick up reception as well as other phones, I lose a bar I would normally have here and there, it's a Samsung issue, where I live in NY Samsungs have problems picking up a signal where lg/motorola phones pick them up just fine. It's not a big deal because my signal is still ok and calls are fine but if I was going to travel upstate or in some fringe reception area I would switch to my old v3m phone though which is more reliable with that.
=Phone is a little big
=Verizon UI (old phone has the old Verizon red bar UI before they made it better).
Everything I Needed And More
This phone has over-exceeded my expectations! This phone has more and does more than I ever expected in a phone. I would reccommend this to anyone who wants a spectacular looking and working phone and the joy of all the extra gadgets and fun it brings!
very annoying points
i like the phone for the same reasons everyone else does.
my CONS: in-tenna is sweet and doesn't poke or get caught in pockets, but it DOES cut-out more often then my other phoneS that i've had.
the software is pretty slow, i'll be 3 or 4 buttons in and it's still registering the 1st or 2nd move i made
the red crap blocks up my whole screen. quality/clarity is nice, but let me use all of the space please!!!
lastly, it says it uses T9 in the specs, but it DOESN"T SAVE NEW WORDS!!!! this may not matter to other people, but i send and receive about 50 texts a day, and it doesn't remember nicknames or words i use very very often.
IF ANYONE KNOWS A CRACK, OR ANY WAY TO GET MY PHONE TO START RECOGNIZING AND ACCEPTING NEW WORDS IN T9 PLEASE EMAIL ME @
DYNAMIKESTUDIOS@YAHOO.COM !!!!!
my software is this (whatever it all means)
V. a950.Y103
PRL V. 50430
ERI V. 50019
Great phone, but also the Peoples Phone!
Essentially this is a very good phone. One thing I can verify is that the reception will be as good or better than your current phone. My apartment has the worse reception and it didn't drop a call while I owned it.
Here is why it is a good phone. It has a great image quality and great video quality. The signal seems to be great. It has blue tooth and the MP3 functions on the front of the phone are nice to have.
Here is why it is the peoples phone. I personally have a beef with Verizon because I feel that they try to control too much on our phones. This phone is seriously a phone that would be put out by a communist regime that is trying to control what you can use and can not use, what you have to purchase from them and what you personalize with it. The OS scheme is obviously in Verizon style which really is annoying. The ring tones are horrible and I feel on purpose by Verizon. They only have 5 ring tones and they are the worse I have ever heard. They are also quiet. Essentially it is obvious to me that Verizon wants you to use their Get it now to personalize this phone. This where I have a problem with their phones. I feel that is just too much power and money on their end and I personally don't like it. The Motorola 815 still at least has a scheme that makes sense and still allows a little personalization to your phone.
Essentially, if you haven't owned anything previous to this phone in Verizon, then buy it you won't know what you are missing, but as they say knowledge is key and Verizon removes it from you on here. I hope that Verizon changes this scheme soon because I think it will eventually bite them in the butt when other people see what other Carriers phones can really do.
NOTE: Old Motorola Blue tooth headsets will not work on this phone.
I like the phone, but like I said it is certainly the Peoples phone and Verizon is the Peoples Carrier which isn't a good thing in a capitalistic society! :)
Almost Almost!
This phone looks strikingly familar to the 8100...is this the "new" look for high end VZ phones? And its that same LAME interface! Those irritations aside, its nice to see a better offering from Samsung. They havent release a cutting edge multimedia phone...ever really. Reviews based on few days use, metro area, good signal.
Pros-
Large, bright screen
good camera quality
decent speakerphone
good keyboard feedback
feels well built, no creeks
MP3 player!
good battery life for MM phone
EVDO/web browser a definate improvement
Cons-
-reception not what expected from Samsung
-no camera button on keyboard
-camera has two second delay to start
-camera button when pressed starts in videocam mode
-irritating shutter delay makes you miss pics
-lagging interface, sloppy OS
-red banners cover 10% of viewable area
-bluetooth for headset only
-if theres an area of the phone i'm not supposed to touch (internal antenna) why put it where i put my finger to hold the phone to my ear?!? "can you he...ow? ca..hear..e..o..hang on let me move my finger"
The build quality of this phone is top notch, the audio quality superb. Most of the problems and irritations come from the sub par user interface, now a standard. Its, ugly, outdated, small fonts, it lags, the camera lag is horrible, it has an illogical layout, not customizable, too many keystrokes to launch MMS, the list goes on and on. Let's hope they realize the universal OS was a bad idea. Any time a manufacturer is forced to integrate a carrier specific OS with thier firmware and existing software, you get these kinda of problems.
Annoying pinging sound
The Samsung a950 is a great phone with great features. However, the first day I got the phone, I noticed that every 30 seconds during calls there was a soft electronic pinging/beeping sound in the background. At first I thought it wasn't such a big deal, but after a day or so, it started to annoy the crap out of me! Anytime I talked to someone, I would hear this distracting noise. I went back to the store the next day and exchanged the phone for an LG 8100. Unfortunately, I started hearing that same sound on this phone as well! I'm not sure what causes the noise on these phones, but I never had that problem with my old Samsung a670. My guess is that these are EV-DO phones and there is something with their circuitry and the network that produces the annoying sound.
Nice phone is you are close to cell tower
I agree with just about everything Theatermax said about this phone.
It's very cool (if you don't mind the red color), feels really well built, feels solid if your hand, the sound and volume were great in the store, and during a good part of my drive home. The camera and video display are awesome.
The one flaw, which I consider major (and a deal-breaker for me), is that the reception is not too good unless you are in an area where you normally get full signal. I have had no trouble using an LG 6100, LG 5200, or a Moto V60i anywhere in my house, including the basement. I'd usually have at least 3 bars signal. But with this phone, I got only one or 2 bars throughout the house, and bars in the basement. Even near a window, I couldn't make a single decent call. It would either be very distorted or choppy, or would drop after 30 seconds, and, in no case, did the person I call ever have a pleasant experience--I had to keep repeated things as it kept breaking up.
The phone has an internal antenna, and a warning on top of the phone not to touch the top area of the phone during calls, as the antenna is under than metal casing near the top back of the phone.
So I returned this phone to the store, again getting great signal and wonderful call clarity near and in the store. If you live and work within 100 feet of a Verizon cell tower, I'd highly recommend this phone. But, if you drive around or travel to places where the signal isn't perfect, I'd stay away from this. I returned it for the Moto E815, which didn't quite have the nice call quality, and the cool look and feel, but got great signal in my home, even the basement.
Had it not been for the fact that the reception was not good, I'd have been able to give this phone at least a 4.5.
Maybe this is a problem that can be fixed. I would have thought that Verizon's extensive testing would have caught this problem.
samsung 950, good at best!
I started using this phone about a week ago. I'm not that impressed. I expected more of a phone. I text message a lot and its nice to be able to set specific tones to people in your contact list for when they text message you. well, with this phone, you can't do that and that annoys me really bad. The keypad is also a little strange to text message on and you can not train the phone new words like you can on the 8100.
Pros include:
-small
-nice color
-decent reception
-clear display
-internal antenna, no antenna to break.
Cons include:
-Unable to set specific tone alerts to contacts.
-awkward key pad
-have to hold down side keys to light up front display.
-MP3 player circle on front of phone does not function, at all.
This phone is not a bad phone, it just doesn't do all of the things that I would like it to do. I would recommend the RAZR or 8100 over the samsung 950 any day just based on my family and their personal observations.
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Very Durable
This phone was a beast! I remember this phone fondly, and it was a tossup between it, and the LG VX8100. I had a hard time with the 8100, and the fact it was EVDO. At the time, living in the boonies, I needed to have a solid performer, good reception etc, was key. This phone didn't dissappoint at all.
After 2 years of ownership, this phone basically looked like it was hockey-pucked across the entire globe. Almost none of the red color on the front was there, the headphone jack in it's entirety was missing, the right hinge was cracked in the middle, the inside screen cover was cracked and pieces missing, and it even went swimming twice. Despite this it still worked, and still does to this day! (I've kept it around for sentimental reasons). Texting was easy on this phone. After all the abuse it endured, the keys were not easily able to be pressed down, however, after all it went thru, I really don't have a complaint. The speakerphone was one of the best on any phone I've owned. Same for VCAST and the mp3 capability that this phone offered; however, again, with the abuse it endured, the speakers sounded very raspy.
This was back when Verizon was one of the bigger carriers, their phones weren't so locked down, and some were even free. It's funny to note I was in school at the time (now graduated from college) and it's just fun to look back at the memories.
The only downside I can think of, is on my previous phone to this one, the VX6100, I could have recorded or sent myself ringtones and saved them as the default ringtone. This one only allows you to do that if it is an MP3 and not a QCELP file. This will mean that the sound is stored ONLY to the sounds folder, and isn't able to be set as a ringtone. I assume it was a ploy at the time to get you to download mp3s. There also were only 2 preloaded songs aside from the Bell ringtones. My ringtone was Beverly Hills by Weezer, lmao.I will add one more con, the red bars that displayed above and below the menus!
