Samsung Renown U810
Average Ratings
Superior
I have owned this phone for 4 days and so far it is the best phone I have owned. I bought it for travel and at this time have not been out of the country with it, but using it in my home area has been a pleasure. The phone is solid and has a good feel in your hand. The reception is clear as a land line, the screen is bright and clear, and the keys feel good when sending text messages.
My comments on the Samsung Renown
My latest 3 cell phones are the W755, then the VX-8360, and last Wednesday I received the Samsungâs Renown...I donât care much about features. I just want a phone with good reception, and voice clarity. My only requirement is my need for a âfull- duplexâÂ, office quality speakerphone. The W755 is a really good phone, but not full-duplex, and the VX-8360 actually has an inadequate full-duplex speakerphone. So, when I found out from a Samsung factory engineer (a level 3 tech) that ALL Samsung phones are manufactured with full-duplex speakerphones, I decided on a whim to try the Renown...So far, after three days, it has surpassed my expectations. The voice clarity and reception are actually better than both my W755 and my 3 week old VX-8360. I donât know nor care about the availability of ringtones, how many frigging pixels the camera has, its music playing capabilities or its interfaceâ¦so please donât ask! All I care about are these four things in a cell phone:
1.) it must be stylish looking;
2.) it must have exceptional voice clarity;
3.) it must have good reception;
4.) it must have a full-duplex speakerphone.
The RENOWN delivers on all four of these requirements. However, I also like the placement of the speakerphone, and shortcut buttons, the ease of texting, and the really cool feature, âVisual voicemailâÂ. The back of the RENOWN is dark brown, but the top, which is the flip and the most visible part of the phone, is a metallic dark copper color. It is very rich looking and distinctive, and has caused a WOW reaction around my office ever since I took it out of the box. I really canât think of anything that I donât like about this phone. I didnât really think any phone would top my W755, but the VX- 8360 didâ¦then, I didnât think any phone would top the VX-8360, but the RENOWN doesâ¦.so until/unless the StarTac makes a miraculous comeback, the Renown is definitely a keeper!...Bill
Samsung Renown
I have had a LOT of phones, and I am VERY picky, and about 24 hours ago I picked up a very excellent one. The Samsung Renown through Verizon Wireless. I have owned; LGVX6700, LGVX8600, LG EnV, LG Voyager, BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Q, LGVX,9800 I am usually an LG Fan, and the Chocolate 3 was my other phone I was between with this one. But I am taking 5 out of country trips this year so I decided too get one that would come in handy. And also I HATE when everyone you see has the same phone and I figured thats what wold happen with the chocolate.
The Renown is my first Samsung, so there are some differences I am getting used too. I am a BIG TEXTER so I know the ins and outs. The Samsung seems too hold its own there with minor annoyances like no auto erase on SENT messages, and you can't read texts from the front screen without Auto Read on. Which I don't like. Call Quality has been good! Reception is amazing. No dropped or cracking calls where my old phone wouldn't even recieve a text The color is very unique I think and I really like it, and global phones seem too hold their value better than normal phones and less people choose them which is also nice. Texting is different from LG that when using word the current word you are typing isn't highlighted in black, which isn't a big deal or bad thing, just different. and it vibrates three times when you have text vibrate on instead of just once, again not bad just different. The way the buttons click on the inside is absolutely perfect and the texture is not too slippery and not too rough. I love it, although i'm not sure the voice command and speaker buttons are located in the best place. also the smudges do not show up as bad as i thought you barely notice them.
PROS
Reception
Global Capabilites
Key Pad is EXCELLENT Perfect feedback and spacing
Styling! Sleek and cool
Texting
Camera is GOOD
FAST INTERFACE
EXCELLENT Batt Life.
Rare phone
CONS
Slight Texting Lag
Front Screen Could Be Bigger
No texts on front
WoW
Large Screen! GSM Quadband! Large Keypad!
Stylish! What a Phone!@!@! I love it!
Touch Phone is too much for me but this phone! It's really easy and simple to use but has everything!
Samsung Renown U810
This phone is built with a ton of features that are great to have in a cell phone. I can describe all the features but I think others have mentioned all the proâs already and I concur.
But unfortunately the conâs have to be mentioned as well, which are a part of this review. This phone does not like to be paired with other devices via âBluetoothâÂ. Once paired the phone gets stuck into a none ending loop. The, 2nd draw back youâll lose all your contact information once you pair the phone. The 3rd item is the battery life, with a full charge your talk time is about 3 hours, but the standby time in only 18-24 hours max, and yes I did make all the necessary adjustment to extend the standby time.. The bottom line the phone has to be recharged continuously.
I did contact Samsung, they may have a software patch but it has not been released.
Best phone I've had
Between my wife and I, we've used about 10 different cellphone w/Verizon (going back to AirTouch days). We've had Motorola, Samsung and LG. I travel to Europe for work occasionally and got tired of ordering the temp Motorola world phone. It was time for an upgrade to my Samsung SCH-A990 (not a bad phone).
Overall:
The Renown has been a great phone: ease of use, reception/transmission, quality, and camera have work nicely. This is been my favorite phone to date. And, it works nicely in Germany and London. The display is clear and bright enough.
Quirks and not so goods:
The exterior display could bright and larger. It is really hard to read without opening to see who is calling.
Bluetooth headset, if I haven't used it in a day or more, I need to power the phone off/on for it to aquire the headset. Could be a hardware problem.
I don't use it for MP3. I can't disable the exterior MP3 controls permanently. When I power off/on, I need to hit the disable button on the side. Not a biggie, just annoying.
Battery life could be a bit better. I don't spend hours on the phone each day, yet the battery seems to drain somewhat quickly.
I do like the phone a lot, and highly recommend it as a world, and USA, phone.
Sad Surprise
After reading all great reviews I opted for this phone when switching to Verizon.
I'm sorely disappointed.
Worst one.....
Many of the calls the person on the other side doesn't hear me as well, even with whisper more enabled.
I hear the other side often clipped so the the word "clipped" will sound like "lippe"
Software has bugs....
Dialed calls show wrong names for phone numbers.
When an alarm shows up, sometime hitting OK doesn't actually stop the alarm, even 2-3 hits it doesn't stop.
If I try to edit an alarm, it picks the wrong one to edit.
If I'm looking at a calendar and want to change something, it can randomly pick the wrong one, different from the one I was pointing at.
Other problems.
No way to (even after reading the manual) to make conference calls. May be that's a verizon problem but I had it with AT&T, Tmobile both for years so it was a total surprise when the word conference it not even mentioned in the manual.
I'm giving a 2.5 because the camera works well.
Menus are not that intuitive. Nokia had the best and Moto second best (especially cause you could reorganize Moto's menus). From ancient times, Ericsson had good menus as well.
These menus and LG's Env2 are almost the same, so I imagine they use same software. My kids have LG and they are not as "picky" with customizing the phone and seem happy with theirs. They never have reception issues or voice issues. Renown seems to be only one, even though the software is same/similar.
Text entry (I like predictive input) always defaults to multi-tap and no way to change default or have it be more intelligent about my preference. Have to hit extra keys every time to switch to predictive entry.
Motorola's text entry was much smarter. I had a PEBL but it's the same feature set for SLVR and RAZR. If you are used to MOT, you will be disappointed.
Can't reorganize any menus, limited shortcuts, some directional key changes. Too limited!
Summary: I'm returning it.
