camera phones

I was a little hesitant to go to a Samsung from my excellent Sanyo, but it was time to upgrade and this was by far the best value available to me. So far I have been satisfied by the phone. The camera is surprisingly good. Picture quality is about what you would expect from a phone. At first, I was disappointed with the battery life, but I've concluded that it was mostly because I was doing a lot of changing of the settings entering phone numbers into the directory. It seems though under just normal conditions the battery will hold up to the advertised stand-by hours.

My biggest gripe with the phone, as mentioned before, is that most of the perks are subscription based. If you want to use the camera function, you will need a way to download them. You can either pay $15 a month from Sprint to use their vision program, or you can buy a data cable. I stopped into the Sprint store and they said that Best Buy carries it for $80. A little pricey. Backgrounds and ringers run from $1-$2 and expire after 90 days (although you could probably get them for free if you buy the data cable). The backgrounds that come with the phone are not very good.

The functionality of the phone is about what you should expect though. I've found nothing that would keep me from recommending the phone based on the functionality of the phone, although the Sprint service leaves something to be desired.

PROS
-Tons of Features
-Voice Dialing is Great (the one on the phone, don't pay Sprint for their service)
-Downloading Games
-Very easy to take pictures and send them off
-Receiving text messages easy
-Your personal Sprint Web site is pretty useful and full of info and options to service your account
-Above average reception so far, haven't gone outside of Houston yet

CONS
-Customer Service simply awful. They told me to go down to a Sprint Store when I really didn't need to. They could not Port In my old mobile number even though they told me I could before hand, then they told me my number was restricted by my old service even though Cingular confirmed TO THEM that is was eligible (literally spent hours on this one with no success).
-Downloading Games expensive and only lasts a few months-what a scam!
-Seems to be a glitch in my phone, sometimes moves twice to the left or right when I only press it once
-Internet service is SLOOOW, and sometimes unreliable
-The methodoligy for sending a text message is painfully tidious considering the speed of internet connection (odd why they do this since sending a pic is so easy)
-No way to "reply" instantly to a text message
-Can't send text message to email address
-Sprint charges more than any other company in surcharges that are not mandated taxes. This should be illegal when they advertise a cetain rate plan price.
-Battery Life mediocre

Samsung did a tremendous design job on this phone, the VGA1000 (for the Sprint PCS network). My soon-to-be-wife and I purchased identical phones a few months ago and decided to give them a test run. The design on this phone is subperb - it is small, elegant, and professional, while at the same time remaining trendy and up with the times. Its camera is one of the best out there, and the screen on this phone is beautiful. We've also found the sound quality to be delightful, and have been impressed with its durability as well.

The software is quite fast on this phone -- although the web browser is a bit slower than on Sanyo phones, it is plenty fast nonetheless. We also found the software to be quite stable, with very few of those problems that often come up with the "latest and greatest" PCS phones.

The only cons: Reception is poor compared to Sanyos when in the Sprint PCS network. That said, it seems to find a digital roaming signal BETTER than my old Sanyo 8100 did. It also has a strange quirk wherein you can punch a one-number dial and press talk, only to realize you pressed the wrong number.... so you press "end." However, as soon as you try to dial a different number, you find yourself calling the one to accidentally dialed to begin with if you didn't completely shut your phone. Not a big deal - just a silly quirk. Perhaps they've fixed this with the newer versions of the phone.

Overall, this is a great phone!