Samsung P510 Review

Overall Rating

Auto-opening feature is nice. Like the old Nokia 7110, there is a lot to be said for a phone that has covered keys but that you can still answer with only one hand.
The screen is clear, and easy to read, with a nice degree of configurability

Clumsy software; poor memory management; counter intuitive.

Samsung Mobile Phone - Good points:
Auto-opening feature is nice. Like the old Nokia 7110, there is a lot to be said for a phone that has covered keys but that you can still answer with only one hand.
The screen is clear, and easy to read, with a nice degree of configurability.
The camera works quite well if you like that kind of thing. The camera also works with the flip shut so (with the image appearing on the LCD on the front) so you can do self portraits.
The phone is provided with 2 batteries in the box - a standard one (lasts a couple of days or normal usage) and an extended one that is a few millimeters thicker and lasts the best part of a week.
The unit is exactly the right-size to fit in those ticket pockets you get in jeans, which I found very useful (!) as the phone is close to your hip without jumping around in your pocket.
Bad points:
The Samsung interpretation of predictive text is clumsy at best. The "space" is on the hash key not the zero key - as a life-long Nokia user this infuriated me for about a week! The text modes (free-form, predictive, symbols, numbers) seem to toggle on and off arbitrarily, and the suggested words or symbols from the dictionary are bizarre and difficult to select. Also it does not support proper case as Nokia does, so be prepared for SMS MESSAGES THAT SHOUT.
By default incoming SMS messages are stored on the SIM card. Whilst it's nice to be able to store the messages either onboard or on the SIM, it is not possible to select the default memory destination. There is no point having enough memory for 200 SMS messages on the phone memory, when you have to copy each message individually from the SIM card to the phone message every 10 messages! What you are more likely to do is delete them all!
A similar problem exists in the phone book. As with most phones, you can either store numbers on the SIM card or on the phone. However, there is no facility to bulk copy your numbers to the phone memory (where you can group numbers by name), so this has to be done one by one.
Another problem in the phone book is with caller groups. Unlike Nokia, you can assign individual phone numbers to a caller group rather than just a name on the phone book. Except this is not a good idea because, once more, you have to specify every single number to a caller group rather than do it once per name.
The infra-red port appears to be of a proprietary protocol - I tried beaming phone numbers from both a Nokia phone and a PDA (using Peacemaker which should work with anything), and neither device could connect to the Samsung. This will make it more likely that you will have to spend hours keying your phone numbers in again.