Samsung SGH-A737 / Reviews

I chose this phone hoping to carry one less device, by installing a 4GB Micro SD chip and using it as an mp3 player. Overall I am disappointed, and I am stuck with it. My phone came with my AT&T plan, and it is possible that the phone's software problems (discussed below) are unique to their version of the firmware, but it is more likely that problems like I have with the mp3 player are common with all units.

A737 AS A PHONE: 3 stars.

As phones go, it is good enough. Other reviews complain about durability and battery life. So far mine is not broken, and I agree that the battery life is short. That will put me in the habit of leaving it connected to the computer overnight to recharge (using a USB cable). It's nice to be able to charge it from USB rather than carry an AC charger when traveling. Indoor use is better than my previous phone (Sony Ericsson T610), which did not work well in my home.

A useful feature that is not listed in the manual is "AIRPLANE" mode: it disables connection to the network, so that you can use the device on an airplane, for example to play mp3s or backup the phone's address book to your laptop.

I don't have the data plan. If you're going to pay the exhorbitant monthly fee for data, you should get a smart phone that makes better use of it - because the monthly data fee is about the same.

Unfortunately many features that use the data clog up the menus. For example, if you press the AT&T logo (select button), it pauses, says the connection failed. You have to press OK, then Back, then confirm that you want to exit from the browser, 3 different button presses just to cancel an unimplemented feature. This button is prominent on the phone and I had to learn NOT to press it from the main screen. Wouldn't it be nice if the phone knew it had no data feature, and hid the various data-dependent features in that case? I dislike having many fee-based features clog up the menus - and they aren't even available to me.

On the other hand, there is a convenient configurable menu on another button from which you can select the features you actually use. That goes a long way toward addressing the complaints in the previous paragraph - except for the AT&T logo button starting the browser.

A737 AS AN MP3 PLAYER: 1 star

As mp3 players go, it's terrible!

I have a nice pair of earbuds (Koss "Plug") plugged in through an adapter, and they sound passable when the music is playing, but not as good as on my inexpensive but old Creative Zen Nano Plus mp3 player.

For every song it plays, there is a LOUD click at the beginning (plus about the first half second is not played) and another at the end. Every time I push buttons to navigate the menus on the phone, there is a LOUD click. Sometimes there is a long pause between songs - and I have had to push some buttons to get it going again.

The volume control has only 5 settings. I usually use step 4 even though it is louder than I prefer, because step 3 is much quieter than I prefer.

I would like to play songs in a Music folder in the alphabetic sort order they appear (since my songs include a track number), as I can do with my Zen. The only way to do that is to create a playlist for each folder. It allows you to play by Album and by Artist, but I tend to create folders that have selections from a wide variety of sources, rather than always listen to complete Albums, or all songs I have by an Artist.

One feature, I thought, would save this player: you can rate a song while playing it! So I played two hours worth of songs and rated each of them. While these ratings are indeed available on the phone, they do not show up in the Windows Media Player (whose ratings do not show up in this player, perhaps because a different tag is used), or even in the included software (Multimedia Manager), which does have a column for displaying the rating. If I could figure out how to incorporate ratings set in the phone back to my PC-based mp3 library, I would definitely use it to rate songs conveniently while on mass transit.

The battery life while playing music is poor: perhaps 3 hours. My Creative Zen Nano Plus plays for 15 hours on a single AAA battery, though it is not rechargeable, and I am spoiled by that. Of course, if you play a lot of music on a flight, you won't be able to use the phone when you land.

MISC COMMENTS

The phone came with a charger and nothing else. I had to buy adapters to connect to USB (to charge, and to transfer data), and to use standard 2.5mm (1/8") stereo headphones. You will probably want to buy a lot of accessories to make the phone practical. I am now looking for a good case to protect it.

Contrary to some reviews on Amazon, I have NO PROBLEM using a Kingston 4GB Micro SD chip in this phone.

The 1 megapixel camera will sometimes come in handy when I don't have my "real" camera with me, but the pictures are merely good enough for a mobile phone.

The AT&T plan I have includes SMS text messages. People can send to me via (10-digit-phone-number)@txt.att.net, which is convenient, but I cannot reply to them without a data plan. At least I can send SMS to any SMS-capable user.

The alarm clock, address book, and included PC software are all reasonably good. The PC software takes much too long to transfer multimedia files to or from the phone. Some applications are not intuitive, and the English in the program and its help file was written by someone who does not know the language very well.

The three included USB modes support the Samsung PC software, Windows Media Player protocol, and accessing the MicroSD (if present) like a thumb drive memory stick. There is a choice for "ask me when connecting" - but unfortunately it greys out all but the one for use with Samsung PC software, so this setting is useless.

SUMMARY

The phone is ok for basic phone features. With the exhorbitant price of data plans, if you're going to pay that much monthly, you should invest in a phone that can make better use of the data features. The crippling problems in the MP3 player render it nearly unusable for that purpose.

Read original review at Amazon.