SPH-M610 Review: Part2

Camera - Mediocre

Overall, the M610 might be better off without a camera. Image quality was average for camera phones, which is to say not that good. Though you can send pictures via MMS, Bluetooth, or to a printer using PICT Bridge, there is no digital zoom and no editing functions, so you'll have to hope for the best. The camera snaps and stores pictures quickly, but our review unit included only a 64MB of microSD -- enough for plenty of 2-megapixel pictures, but cramped if you're also downloading music. The hinged camera design is useless, as there is no option to flip the image once you have flipped the camera, so self-portraits were a guessing game. There were a few fun options, including a fly's eye-like burst of 16 tiled shots, but the resolution was too low on this option to create a usable image.

Multimedia - Very good

The Samsung M610 is one of the first phones we've tested to come preloaded with Sprint's Movie Store app. There are almost 50 movies available, more like an interesting playlist than a real movie store. Movies download and stream quickly, though the actual image size is tiny. On screen text such as captions or credits is laughably tiny, and long-distance shots compress faces beyond recognition. Though streaming speeds over Sprint's 3G network were excellent, image size will have to be improved to make this a hot feature. The phone handled Web pages better than most flip phones, loading the complicated New York Times homepage without complaint. However, scrolling down long pages involved numerous clicks on the four-way button. Music is handled nicely through numerous streaming channels, including 20 channels of Sirius satellite radio. Sprint's music store downloaded tracks quickly from their admirably deep library of available tunes, but these tracks are not playable on your PC, and the included music player can only handle purchased files or MP3s, not WMA files. Finally, like all phones we have seen with A2DP support, the Samsung M610 cannot transfer audio from streaming channels to stereo Bluetooth headphones. This includes audio from video clips and even purchased movies. Because the phone uses the same port for charging and wired headphones, this means you may not finish a streaming movie before the battery runs out, unless you're listening on the phone's small speaker.

Odds and ends

The phone includes tethered modem support over Sprint's EV-DO network, though we couldn't test the speeds without an included USB cable. Also, the microSD slot is blocked by the battery so, lacking a USB cable, you'll find yourself taking the phone apart just to transfer pictures and music. The phone has an option to use Sprint's menus or retain Samsung's layered hierarchy design, but some menu functions, such as Bluetooth and music playing options, are duplicated and spread over multiple locations.
11/29/2006 9:01:35 AM
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