Samsung D500 Review

“The Samsung D500 is an excellent mobile phone. I've...”

Written on: 04/01/2006 by themilkyone (2 reviews written)

Good Points
Style, lightweight, feature packed, easy to use, much more robust than it looks, camera and flash (doubles up as a torch!)

Bad Points
Mostly irritating ring tones, alarm tones and reminder tones. Not the best calendar functions if you want to use it as a diary. Sometimes it can slide open if it catches on your pocket, which can cut the call off.

General Comments
The Samsung D500 is an excellent mobile phone. I've had mine for about 9 months now. I am coming up to contract renewal time, and I am struggling to find one that is better, even after this time.



The clarity and reception are good. The screen is bright and clear. I like the fact that the clock is displayed on the screen when in standby, which will not only let you see at a glance the time, but also any messages or missed calls, without opening the phone fully. You can light it by pushing one of the side buttons.



I don't use the music player function, but the quality seems good enough. I did download a video over WAP that was OK, but a little distorted... maybe that's WAP. The tones are generally awful and really cheesy, and the alarm tones will wake you up in a terrible mood.



The options for vibrate are odd - vibrate, ring, or vibrate THEN ring. No option for vibrate AND ring, though some of the tones do make the phone vibrate without selecting the vibrate option.



I have found the bluetooth very useful as I drive a lot. The one niggle here is that if you switch off the bluetooth headset you also have to switch off bluetooth on the phone. I have a Motorola that does it automatically (that is about the only thing it does do better).



Messaging is easy, though those with larger hands may struggle with the recessed keys, and the multimedia messaging is good. You can send a photo straight from taking it, and you can record voice-overs etc. onto MMS, or onto a video to send on. Annoyingly, to send to many people, you have to go through the steps of adding entries one by one, rather than being able to scroll through the address book and select a whole list.



Overall I like this phone. It has a few niggles but nothing that makes me want to chuck it. It was this or the Razr when I got it. I think I made the right choice having heard what friends had to put up with with the Motorola.