Samsung Convoy SCH-U640 (Verizon Wireless) Review

Samsung Convoy is manufactured to tolerate certain elements while providing a 2-megapixel camera, GPS, 3G and a music player. It has a nice audio quality. The cellphone is priced at $99 along with service and after a mail in rebate of $50.  The Samsung Convoy is rugged with rubber sidings, a battery cover that is firmly locked and a tough plastic skin. It is certified with the military specs for dust, humidity, temperature, salt fog and shock The Samsung SCH-U640 is comfortable and solid with a sturdy hinge.

The external display resembling a postage stamp can support 65,000 colors that is a resolution of 128×128 pixels. You have the option to adjust only the contrast. The screen displays the signal strength, date, photo caller ID and time. It also acts as a view finder for the lens of the camera and allows you to access a number of features such as Bluetooth, voice commands, calendar and the music player.

Beneath the display, three buttons for music controls are present and just beneath these buttons; you have the speaker which is quite large. The lens of the camera is located on the top of the display and flash is absent. The internal display measures 2.2” and supports 252,000 colors at a resolution of 220×176 pixels. The display looks vibrant and rich with sharp graphics and colors. The menu interface is quite convenient for use. You can select one among the three menu styles and adjust the icons’ position.

You can switch the standard menus with the apps of your choice. The options to edit include the dial font size, backlight time, menu style and font size and the clock format. The navigation array consists of a large toggle button with an OK button at the centre, a voice dial control, two soft keys, the talk and End/power keys, a clear button and a camera shutter. The buttons are flat and smooth, but they are spacious and hence comfortable to use.

You have the choice of setting the toggle to provide shortcuts to the four features that are defined by the user. The keypad buttons are smooth and flat, but spaced neatly for convenient use. The number keys are big and have a magnificent backlighting. To the right, you can notice a speakerphone control, a 2.5mm headset jack and a microSD card slot, Sadly, a 3.5mm jack is not available on this music phone. To the left, you have a volume rocker, a port for Samsung’s proprietary charger and a programmable shortcut button.

The memory card slots and the ports are concealed by the rubber flaps which are not safe and hence the phone needs to be taken care of getting submerged. The phone includes a phonebook of 1,000 contacts with space for five numbers, a street address, notes and two e-mail addresses in each entry. You have the option of organizing your callers into distinct groups and match them with a snap and one of the 20 polyphonic ringtones. The other features are a calendar, text and multimedia messaging, a speakerphone, notepad, a calculator, a stop watch, a world clock and an alarm clock.

The phone also provides voice commands that are independent of the speaker, USB mass storage, stereo Bluetooth, dialing, PC syncing, support for POP3 e-mail and chat and instant messaging. Using the integrated GPS, you can connect to the ‘VZ Navigator’. Over all, the feature is quite strong, but the push to talk feature could have been included in the phone. The phone has a camera of 2 Mega pixels which captures pictures in five resolutions, from 1,600×1,200 pixels to 160×120 pixels.

The options available for editing are three quality settings, four white balance choices, a self-timer, five color effects, a brightness meter, an adjustable ISO, spot metering and a 10x digital zoom. Various shooting modes are available: autoshot, panaromic and divided multishot along with a collection of shutter sounds. The camcorder has very few editing options. A multimedia message video is capped in a minute, but can be shot for longer duration in Standard mode.

The photo quality is extremely good with bright colors and very less image noise. Some of the images had a pinch of light pink. Since a flash is absent, you need to shoot the snaps in places of bright light. The videos were considerably good. Transferring of photos from the phone can be done using Bluetooth, via a wired connection to your PC or in a message. An online album is present. The phone has an integrated shared memory of 90MB which is great and can shelter the microSD cards till 16GB.

The Samsung Convoy supports the entire range of Verizon’s 3G services which include V Cast Music with Rhapsody and V Cast streaming video content. Both of them are similar to those present in the other Verizon phones. The options for the music player are the repeat modes and the usual limited shuffle. V Cast Music will inform you about the songs based on the playlist. The phone also features an airplane mode to listen to the tunes conveniently.

The phone can be personalized by using wallpaper, display themes and a banner. The phone does not incorporate extra applications or games, but the option of download is present using the WAP 2.0 browser. The call quality is very good with the strong and clear signal. The volume is good and no interference from the other devices is present. The phone is consistent with T4 and M4 hearing aids.  The quality of the speaker is also superb. The external speaker is very clear and audible from both ends.

The 3G connectivity is slightly unstable while you download music tunes from the Music Store of Verizon and downloads a 3.73MB song in two minutes, which is long. The quality of the music player is impressive, on both the headphones and the external speaker. The phone offers a battery lifetime of 5 hours and at standby, it will last for 22 days.

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