Samsung SGH-D307
Average Ratings
Great Phone
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First off, anyone who says the keyboard layout is confusing is exaggerating. The keyboard looked confusing when I first played with the phone. After 3 or 4 days of use I was able to use the phone with ease. Don't be intimidated by people who say this phone is too difficult to use. A 10 year old could use this phone easily. Anyone who has difficulty either:
A. Did not bother to check the manual ONCE, or B. Felt they didn't have to learn a NEW way to use a phone.
Here's my own handson personal experience after using the phone for 3 weeks now:
First off, everyone that sees this phone absolutely loves it. Everyone I've shown it to says "Can I play with it?" or "Your phone is so neat!"
Pros:
Regular flip, and full qwerty
Bluetooth
Beautiful Bright Color Screen
LOUD speaker phone
LOUD ringer volume(at highest volume)
AOL Instant Messenger
Plenty of Features
Cons:
SMALL MEMORY. I wish this phone had expandable memory slot.
Keys are small, if you have big fingers you may want to pass on this phone.
No ring AND vibrate function. If you want both, the phone will vibrate first, then ring 2nd, but not do both at the same time.
I've gotten great reception, and the battery life is good. I was disappointed in the limited functionality in landscape(full QWERTY) flip mode. You can make phone calls(via speaker phone), send txt, make notes, and use IM, and add/delete phone numbers/addresses. Thats it. You can't browse internet.
I've gone though a lot of phones through the years and this one is by far my favorite.
Good Quality Phone
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Like most other reviews here it took me a few days to figure out some of the phone's features. They keys in landscape mode are a little hard to figure out at first, but now it is not a problem.
This first thing I like about the phone is the outstanding connection quality. All of the calls I have made have been very clear. I am even getting good quality calls in areas where my old phone didn't do very well.
A few of the things the phone is missing:
a) POP3/IMAP email. This would be nice to have but I can still send and receive emails using the @mobile.mycingular.com
b) Ability to use full QWERTY keypad when in Internet browser. I didn't buy the phone to surf the web. I purchased it because it is a cell phone and it is very easy to key (enter) text messages. For the few times I'll use it on the internet the old way of entering letters will work fine. The phone does have a nice "extract address" from emails/text messages so if you get a message with an http: link in it you do not have to key it in to the browser.
c) The address book can not have one entry with both a phone number and an email address. I got around this by setting up my address book with normal NAME for phone and I put an @NAME entry for email addresses. This took a little time and there is some extra scrolling when sending emails, but not a big problem.
d) Missing expandable memory. No big problem, how many quick text messages do I really need to save? If a message is that important I can email it to my home/office computer.
For good quality calls, text messages and emails this is a great phone. Its design is light and small enough to fit in to a pocket for easy carrying. If I really needed some of the missing features I would have purchased the larger Palm or Blackberry.
I like this phone
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I have used or tested most phones that Cingular has as well as other service providers. My last phone was the Motorola SLVR which I liked because of its size, however I could not read the screen in the daylight and the type and keys were too small for me.
I played with the Samsung D307 Demo model in the storeand it felt cheap (wrong thing to do, demos always feel cheap). I went back into the store a few weeks later and asked to see the real thing. I decided to go ahead and get it and give it a shot. I'm glad I did.
After a week of using it I'm really having fun with it, it's a nice phone. Keep in mind who the target audience is... those who text and IM a lot. For that purpose I think it's a great phone. It's not a Blackberry or PDA so don't look for those types of features and/or functions. It's a text phone. I'll break out what I consider my pros and cons:
PROS
- You can see the screen in any light.
- Nice big type on the screen.
- QWERTY board.
- Landscape mode is nice.
- Keyboard; sure it takes a couple of days to get use to it but after that it's a breeze.
- Speaker phone.
- IM programs once you sign in you can stay signed in, no accessing the Internet to IM. I use Yahoo and it works great.
- Great battery life.
- Bluetooth
CONS
- A step too many to turn on the speaker phone... minor.
- A camera would have been nice, but it's no the end of the world.
- Would have liked to seen a normal ringer instead of the musical ones.
- When you try to access the phone via a USB cable it asks for a WMC ACM 1.0 App, which I have yet to find on the Internet. Without it you can't hook up your phone to the computer (computer doesn't recognize the device).
So to sum it all up, if you're looking for a fun text phone that has a qwerty board, is easy to see and read and is a good phone with good battery life you should give this one a try.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the story of this phone
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Great hardware ruined by a poor user interface and limited functionality. The physical phone looks and feels good. The full qwerty keyboard and dual-hinge flip up screen, Bluetooth and VoiceMode are good. Flipping up the screen in portrait mode brings up an average phone with average features. Having no memory card slots, camera, or color external display this would not be much to brag about features wise, but all in all it has good voice quality an is acceptable.
However the whole novelty of the phone is that when you flip the screen up in landscape mode you have a full qwerty keyboard at your disposal. Unfortunately this is where it turns from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Once the screen is opened in landscape mode you are presented with a different screen where you have IM, Notes, Mobile Mail and SMS. None of the phone features are accessible while in this mode. That means you canât use the qwerty keyboard for anything other than these 4 primitive applications, not even a wap/web browser is provided, as that is in the other half of the phone. The mobile mail only supports Yahoo mail, MSN Hotmail, AOL and SB Yahoo. No POP3 or IMAP mail. The Mobile Mail application keeps âChecking for Upgradesâ every time the phone is opened in landscape mode and is quite annoying. Navigating around in landscape mode is cumbersome and confusing. The labels on the bottom of the screen donât line up with the buttons you would expect them to be indicating. There is no consistency to the navigation, in one application space exits the program, in another it is the back key. When you open notes or SMS you are presented with an illustration trying to indicating some sort of key map but I have yet to meet anyone who can decipher what it means. This has got to be the most awkward phone I have ever had the experience of using. The reason this phone was purchased was for the qwerty keyboard and high speed EDGE capabilities, however Samsung blew it by not providing anything useful to use them for.
Pretty Good
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At first, I was apprehensive about buying this phone after reading the negative reviews on this phone. After having it for a few days, it has really grown on me. When in Landscape mode, I like it better than the Sidekick. Even though the QWERTY keyboard can't be applied to all features like the Sidekick (Internet), it can be applied to most such as IM, SMS, Notes and Calendar. Using Cingular's E-Mail client, I am also able to check my AOL E-mail in Landscape mode. If you have Cingular, I recommend buying at least 200 text message and 1 MB (for checking/sending emails). It's more economical with T-Mobile and the Sidekick, but if you are being held hostage with your contract as I was, this is a good option. The only reason I'm not giving this phone a 5 is for two reasons:
1) When the phone is closed it is a little bigger than what I'm used to, and when it is in Portrait mode it extends from my ear to my mouth (and I have a Big Head).
2) When closed, the phone is very square. I am used to round phones.
If you're looking for function over form, this is a great phone, which is still somewhat attractive. I definately recommend this phone, being the best QWERTY phone that I see Cingular coming out with in a LONG time.
Nice Phone
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I first want to start off by saying that it is quite clear that the people who gave this phone a low rating do not actually own this phone as you are supposed to when rating it. I am guessing they played with it for five minutes or less at the local Cingular store.
It appears that this phone was designed for people who need a phone to really get things done. Kids complaining that it does not have silly trinkets like a camera and MP3 is just stupid as it was not really targeted to them anyway. Enough on that, on with the review.
I can access almost everything in landscape mode including address book, calendar and to dos. Reception and sound is great. The keyboard takes a little getting used to but no worries there. The display is beautiful and the font is very easy to read. It has Yahoo IM, AOL IM and ICQ. The voice recognition is really cool too.
I was worried about how tough the dual hinge would be, but it seems very solid and I have had no issues with it being sloppy.
My only concern is finding PC software for it. I have a data cable but am unable to find the software to control it. All in good time I guess.
And it would be nice if I did not have to push extra buttons to get numbers in landscape mode. But I can live with that.
I use Yahoo IM to communicate and rarely use the phone portion so it works great for me.
All in all it is a good phone. I would recommend it for someone who does a lot of text messaging.
Good Idea - Poorly Executed
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I am out in the field with my work and don't want to carry my PDA around all the time. I was looking for a phone to replace my Nokia 6200. I wanted a keyboard since I'm always having to add contact info and calender appointments. My phone company offered this phone and many people I knew liked Samsung phones, so I bought it.
To begin with, the software is very poorly designed. In the phone mode things work pretty much as expected. In the landscape mode, you're on your own. The landscape interface is very poor. Samsung should have beta tested this thing and tweaked it before releasing it to the public. Typing is very slow and I found I need to wear my reading glasses in order to be accurate at all.
This phone has some annoying glitches. The first 307 I had would do strange things, the most annoying of which is that the back light would stay on from time to time and the only way to shut it off was to re-boot the phone. It also refused to connect to the Internet. Volume settings for ring tones and such would change all by themselves.
I exchanged the phone for a new one and that phone had similar problems but it's Bluetooth connectivity was terrible and I needed that function for my headset. So I turned that new phone back in for my old one since I need Bluetooth more then the Internet. So now I'm stuck with a phone that won't connect to the Internet and has all these odd system irregularities.
The phone is good looking and feels good in your hand but the software and interface are full of glitches. As a phone only, it's decent and I love the voice dialing feature. But the rest of the stuff that I paid a premium for doesn't work very well and, combined with all the glitches, I would not recommend this phone. I've had two of them and they both had problems. Maybe Samsung will fix the bugs for the next model year, but till then, look elsewhere
Not Bad
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Feels good in the hand. Bluetooth connects perfectly. Screen is sharp. No problems with RF.
Keyboard is ...innovative. Difficult to learn the layout and the markings are confusing at first. I could get used to it in a few weeks but the average Joe might feel it's too strange. As a phone, the thing works great.
A blast from the past, Horrible!!
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A point five is being Generous, The web browser is almost non existant, the interface is poorly executed and I have no idea what samsung was thinking. Landscape mode, though cool, is ridiculously overly complicated. The Cons of this phone comletely out weight the pros
Seriously Consider Before Buying this Phone!!
pretty decent
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I've had a few phones now and so far this one seems to be the only one without any manufacture defect. Like the horrible camera on my mpx220. this has the loudest ear piece i've ever used and the best speaker phone which i use alot. the full querty keyboard comes in very handy. the voice to text reconegtion takes getting use to as does the key pad. this phone is not for the simple.
Pros
loud
ringtone
speaker phone
ear piece
voice recognition
bluetooth
big clear display
internal antenna
good reception
Cons
alright battery life but could be better
learning the key pad is not easy
All in all i think this is a good phone if you can get past all the stuff it doesn't have like no color external display but then a gain it has no camera so you don't need it. no memory card slot but theres no mp3 player and again no camera so what are you going to store on it anyway. i live in western mass. and the only service worth wild is cingular and i've had the mot. c331t, v600, v551, mpx220, noka 3300, 3220. I must say im happy samsung came out with a querty keyboard with bluetooth.
