Samsung SCH-U540
Average Ratings
you can read texts on the front! :)
First off, this is a great phone! i am addicted to texting and this phone has a large and spacious keypad, along with a vivid and surprisingly large internal screen. one point i would like to clarify is that have found 2 things that can kinda fix some of your annoying quirks. one is about texts on the external screen. i really wanted this feature, and i have it now. its simple, go into the messaging menu. click the settings button and it will bring up a small half screen menu. click 2.TXT message and then click 1.TXT auto view. this should be off, turn it on. you will now find you can read texts on the front screen!!!! another is about the battery life. this is an EV-DO phone, and the EV uses up a lot of the battery life. if you don't go on the web and use mobile TV and other devices that require EV much, you can change it to CDMA so its only the 1X, and this will save the battery a little. go to tools and settings and click # (pound). enter the user lock which is ALL 0's. this is the system info menu. go into 4. Pref mode. it is on hybrid mode by default. switch to CDMA only, and this will eliminate the EV part. it will take a little longer to receive and send pix and flix messages, but other than that it should be fine. this will help conserve the battery some. as well if you hit * (star) and also enter ALL 0's you will go into the service programming menu. hope this was helpful, especially the front screen text!
U540 AMAZING
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this phone...
I had a samsung a950 before and was having a hard time deciding what to replace it with.
I have service thru Verizon in NY state, and They are TOTALLY the best company as of now.
Pros:
-LOUD Ringers
-Customize Ringtones with vzwpix.com address
-Nice color
-Great Menus
-Touch screen outside for mp3 player
-Key lock easy on outside to turn off touch buttons
-Strong vibrate
-uses ALL size pics for contact id
-mp3 ringtones
-charges quickly
-large buttons for bigger hands
-lightweight
-sturdy
-safe location for memory card under battery cover
-LOUD speaker phone
-great reception MUCH better than my Samsung
A950
-has a plug for the charging port my A950 had one but was not attached and easily lost
-Many camera options
-can take video even when phone is closed
-button on inside for the camera
-voice activated features work VERY well!!
-T9 is better than A950
-when you enter a contact in texting it enters the name, so you can see who you are messaging
Cons
-poor battery life, but order a replacement!!
-does not work with BitPim as of yet
-this phone is too awesome...
Front Screen Screw-Up
I bought this phone to replace a trustworthy LG that had served me well for about 2 years. I got this phone for several reasons:
1.Front screen with time and caller info.
2.Updated software
3.Music capability
4.Looks, shape, and durability.
I'm going to be honest, this phone is really durable and has survived several drops. But, about a month after I got this phone, I just pulled it out of my pocket one day and...BAM...the front screen was eternally jacked up. I took it to Verizon and they said that it was not a manufacturer defect so I would have to pay for a new one if I wanted to replace it. AHHH!!! I just went on with my life until I found two other people that I go to school with having the same problem with their same phone. So, just be careful with this one. Other than that issue, rockin' phone.
Might be Good in Arizona
I decided to purchase this phone for a few reasons:
1. The calendar for keeping meetings
2. The camera
3. The specs did not say that voicemail was precoded for automatic dial #1.
4. Samsung has a good reputation in electronics.
After having the phone for a few months, I've decided this is not the phone I expected to receive.
First, the pros:
1. The camera has some nice features with lighting.
2. Hmm, that's really the only thing I really like about the phone. Sound is ok, but I'm not inspired to rhapsodize about it.
Now, the cons:
1. The alarm clock is inconsistent. I cannot tell you how many times I overslept while using this feature as my main alarm clock.
2. If I scheduled something before daylights savings time this fall, the phone automatically pushed these meetings forward an hour if they fell after daylight savings.
3. You can reprogram the phone number in speed dial number 1, but it says voicemail regardless.
4. You have to open the phone in order to see what time it is.
5. Receipt of voicemail is not consistent.
6. Battery life is not impressive.
7. The ring tones are abysmal. The specs make it sound like you have many options, when really they're mostly scales and songs that no one likes.
8. The space to write notes is not sufficient.
9. Pictures for identifying phone numbers are really small.
All in all, I'm extremely disappointed. I switched from LG phones because I thought this phone would be more useful for my life, but I'm probably going to switch back.
Not bad, but not perfect
I upgraded to this from a Samsung a950 that I was very happy with. After using the U540 for a couple months now I feel like it was more of a sideways trade from my 950.
The U540 doesn't have the best speaker quality, still can't learn text??? (COME ON SAMSUNG!), and the battery life is about the same as my 950's battery after 2 yrs of use!
On the positive side, I do like the size/shape of the phone, the faster menu and the signal strength seems to be just fine where I use the phone.
All in all, I really liked the a950 and was hoping for bigger and better with this, only to get mediocre at best.
Itâs a good phone, but lacks certain qualities that would have made it great. If you do choose to go with the U540, get the extended life battery!
Good phone with some annoying quirks
Pros
-phone is nice and sleek
-call quality is excellent, people say they think I am on a land line
-camera is okay, all I want is a nice pic of my toddler for my wallpaper
-screen is nice and large
Cons
-speakerphone SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS. it echos on half your calls so the great feature of dialing and using speakerphone with the phone shut is totally useless.
-regular battery is not great. a few short calls, a couple texts, one half hour call, three pictures and my phone is on one bar of power
-the antenna is in an annoying place. I guess I have big hands but the one centimeter strip of antenna at the top of the phone is hard to avoid when I am using the phone. this makes the phone less then comfortable to hold.
-outside display does not stay on so you have to push a button to make the clock visible. those buttons are hard to push
-I have owned the phone for two days and it has already "crashed" once. some random error message appeared.
Something 2 think about
Not very impressed with the speaker-phone (has alot of echo), the voice recognition system leaves alot of to be desired. I am also not impressed with the battery life, especially when attempting to use the phone for music, or navigation. It's hard to hear unless the phone is held exactly to the correct position on your ear.
Other than that, I am quite please the features.
Not Very Well Thought Out Design
After two years, my Motorola E815 (good phone) OS finally died; so after doing some research I narrowed the choices down to two. Because I thought the larger inner and outer displays would be more advantageous than the second choice, I started with the Samsung SCH-U540: call quality was not quite as good, the blackened outer display was worthless in medium ambient light and (of course) outdoors, battery life was horrible without a warning before it died, MP3 controls lockout is too easily overridden (annoying), and the voice dial prompts came through the speakerphone without turning the speakerphone on (very irritating not to mention distracting to others). After getting into the hidden menus, and going through Samsung level two support (who stated there are no hidden menus) in an attempt to have the voice dial prompts output only through the earpiece without success, I nixed it.
Then came the Motorola W385: a much better phone...
Ok Phone, but too many cons I can't live with
As part of my new every two plan, I wanted to upgrade from my old Motorola 815 to something sleeker. I chose the Samsung U540 because I was looking for a solid, sleek phone that focused on call quality and easy texting rather than music, games, or other "non-core" features. Although the basic call quality of the Samsung is great (my husband comments on how clear I sound), there are just too many small things that drive me crazy about this phone that I will be taking it back. The final culprit was the predictive texting. While it is great at predicting words, it won't let you change from whatever word the phone recommends. So, if the phone chooses "if" and you meant "he", you have to change the setting to "abc" delete the predictive entry, type "he" and then change the setting back to "word". I text a fair amount and found this to be a deal breaker.
Pros:
- Good sound quality
Cons:
- Predictive Texting settings - all or nothing, no way to choose between different potential word combinations
- Voice Dialing - need to enable speaker phone to use voice activated dialing. A pain when you're on your headset.
- Side buttons: no way to answer the phone when you're on your headset without opening it (another feature is 5 second auto-answer - but i don't want to phone to automatically answer for me)
- Battery Life: battery is down to 2 bars after 24 hours
- Acoustics: while I sound clear to others, I find the audio quality not as clear as on previous phones I've owned.
- Low volume audio: I have to turn the audio all the way up to hear people clearly
- Poor ring tones included: this is mostly a verizon complaint, but the ring tones included are terrible and not a lot of options. No basic ringtone is part of the set.
- Outside display: turns off, so you have to open the phone to see the time. Also won't show sender of text messages on external display.
