SPH-M610 Review

This wafer-thin clamshell features stereo Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera and access to Sprint's Music Store and TV services. Does the M610 belong in your pocket?

Design

While it currently holds the title of world's slimmest flip phone at 0.47 inches, the Samsung SPH-M610 is not especially attractive. The exterior front of the clamshell is a flat matte black slab, with a small blue OLED display at the top. Though the OLED is bright and clear, it has a utilitarian look, displaying simply the time and a row of status icons. Flip it open, and the interior looks like that of any other black clamshell -- that is, one run over by a steamroller to achieve perfect flatness, except for a gentle curve leading to the hinge and swiveling camera.

Calling - Very good

Calls on the M610 are remarkable not only for what you can hear, but also for what you don't hear. The phone has a great sound, with only a touch of static on the receiving end of our calls, but listeners reported no background noise or breathing from the phone. The phone supports speaker-independent voice dialing, but like the three-way calling option, this was buried low in the calling menus. Bluetooth works well, though, and we had fun with the video ringer option that lets you set videos for specific incoming calls. The dialing screen is marvelous; it looks like a game show scoreboard as each digit lights up the screen. The contact list offered plenty of options for this non-smartphone, and Sprint even offers a subscription-based wireless backup service to keep your contacts on their central server in case you lose or trade-in your phone.

Messaging - Very good

The Samsung SPH-M610 is a surprisingly competent messaging phone, helped by a plethora of useful options and features that make texting a real pleasure. T9 predictive text input on the SMS app is helped not only by a drop-down menu that offers word choices, but also a dictionary that remembers your previously used words. A zoom mode for incoming messages allows you to view about 80 characters (or half a full 160-character SMS message) at once in large type, or you can fit more than 160 characters in a very readable smaller font size. Both instant messaging and e-mail options for AIM, MSN and Yahoo come preloaded, and the phone even includes a ''Chat and Dating'' menu item that bookmarks Lavalife and Chat del Mundo services, among others. The menus in the messaging section are a bit confusing, but options abound. Typing on the flat keys was surprisingly easy, and while we had to watch where we were tapping, we hardly ever pressed the wrong key.


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