camera phones

This phone is amazingly small and light for a camera phone; it even has a flashlight/flash. Problems the phone has that I find to be a real problem: 1. The battery life is the worst of any phone I've ever owned. It MAY last 2 to 3 days in stand by IF I don't use it at all; if I use the phone at all, even just 10 minutes, no more than one day on a full charge. 2. No voice activated dialing. I like to use a speaker type hands free kit in the car so I don't have to look at the phone to answer, talk or dial. I think all phones should have it. 3. It is not very user friendly. The menus are not logical and are confusing. 4. It has an IR but it doesn't sync with your computer. You can't transfer anything. I don't get why they even have it. They have software and cable you can purchase that will let you backup the phone numbers you enter and photos you take, but (5) no syncing with Outlook, your PDA or anything else. 6. If you buy ring tones or wallpaper, you can't back those up.

I do love the phone for its size, weight and even the color, I find it easy to hold and talk with. The sound isn't the best, but it isn't bad either. It rings nice and loud and putting it on vibrate is easy. I can't put the phone in a standard cell phone holder for the car because the camera button is on the side and it's a long key, the holder makes the camera come on. I had to get a small holder that only grabs in one small area on each side. I've had to purchased 3 additional batteries and every kind of charger available because the average use of a battery is 15 hours (regular phone use for me is: about 10 minutes a day, use the "t-zones" for a minute or two once a month, in 6 months I've taken a total of 9 photos, and transferred data twice). The battery lasted 3 days ONCE, when I was home sick and didn't use the phone and one 24 hour day I had to replace the battery three times as they completely discharged. I'm use to a battery lasting 5 to 8 days (like this phone says it will last).

I also like T-Mobile. Their customer service is really good, the features they offer on their web site are great, the prices for wireless modem and wireless web are incredibility great and the national calling price plans are very good compared to what I've seen elsewhere. I was with AT&T since they bought out L.A. Cellular. The customer service was great for years, but got so bad I'd wait on hold for hours and couldn't get through to a person for days.

This phone is probably the coolest looking phone out there, and there's precious few sacrifices made with it. The internal antenna gives me pertty good reception, for T-mobile (San Diego, CA). The camera is just about the best I've seen in a mobile phone. It has adjustable brightness, and a zoom feature (of questionable quality). The best part is that if you have a laptop or other computer with an infrared port, you can use the free software available on Samsung's website (EasyGPRS) to move pictures off the phone, and upload wallpapers and ringtones to the phone, without paying WAP charges. So far, I've been totally happy with the battery life, but then I'm not snapping pictures three hours a day, or expecting it to go for weeks without recharging. The external display is a blue organic LED, not color. It's not a downside-- the signal strength, clock, and battery icons are always on and lit-- also helps finding your phone in the dark. The main part of the external LED is used for an analog or digital clock which stays on for an adjustable amout of time after closing the phone, and as a grayscale viewfinder for using the camera in self-portrait mode. Photos attached to the caller ID don't show up on the outside, just the text caller ID. Overall, a great little phone for GSM 900/1900 use.

Regarding a couple of things I saw in other reviews: Yes, the battery life is short on the first couple of charges. This is mentioned in the manual, and isn't uncommon for Li batteries that have sat around for a couple of months. Just charge it up all the way, run it until the battery warning goes off (sounds like a doorbell chime), charge it up all the way, and you'll be fine.

The IR port: it can't talk to other phones or PDAs. It can (and does) work with the IrDA port on a Win2k or WinXP machine, and Samsung's easy GPRS software. You can use it to upload 128x128 pixel images for wallpaper, upload ringtones (I've uploaded a number of .mmf files, all work just fine), and download pictures from the camera to the PC. You can also use it as a modem, letting your computer access the net using the GPRS system-- note that unless you have the unlimited GPRS plan, you'll pay by the MB. Still, kind of nice to be able to check your e-mail from anywhere.

Pros:

Stylish, lightweight, seems pretty durable
Excellent internal and external screens
Super-easy connectivity without shelling out for a data cable (if you have IrDA on your computer)
Very customizable ringtones and wallpapers
Best phone-camera I've seen so far

Cons:

Slight buzzing noise when using the phone in a very quiet place, nothing major
Reception so-so (but that's more T-mobile than the phone, I think)
The phone comes with NO decent ringtones, if you don't want a song or the t-mobile jingle, you'll want to download a "normal" ringtone right off the bat. Some of the more annoying ringtones use the three-color LED on the front to make your phone look like a disco. Yech.
Not a tri-band, so it can't do GSM 850/1800 regions
Default settings "out of the box" seem to be designed to annoy you and everyone around you (loud t-mobile jingle ringtone, loud keypad tone, annoying flashing leds indicating service, ugly T-mobile/Catherine Zeta-Jones wallpaper).
Everybody wants to play with your phone, which can get annoying ;)

After a Samsung V205 which had problems, I was staying away from Samsung products but was given this by my company. Samsung seems to have problems with their charging circuitry or software because this phone developed the same sort of problem that my old V205 did. I would charge it all night, have a full charge in the morning, and 10 minutes into the first call of the day, it would die; the battery was flat dead. This charming behavior began a few months into my ownership. You have to really research it on the net, but I did eventually find out that this is a problem with Samsungs in general (although it's remarkable how difficult it is to get that information -- Samsung must have quite a legal department).

I won't bore you with the warranty hassles dealing with Samsung. Suffice to say that you will have to fight for every concession and in the end probably just toss the phone and buy a different one. That's what I did.

However, I don't give this E715 only one star despite its showing the same charging problems. This is a slick little phone with a lot of great features, so it gets an extra star. I don't really mind the charging problem because when it started to croak the company gave me a new one. If you can work a deal like mine where you get a new one for free every few months, I highly recommend this phone.