Cell Phones Blog

Design

At three ounces and 3.7 x 1.8 x 0.7 inches thick, the clamshell-style M500 is very light, compact, and comfortable to hold. The 1.3-inch external screen sports 96 x 96 pixels and 65,000 colors, and the 1.9-inch internal screen provides 176 x 220 pixels and 262,000 colors. The handset doesn’t have media controls on the outside, so you have to open the phone for media playback.

Features

It’s equipped with a 1.3-megapixel camera, 50MB of available memory, a microSD Card slot, stereo Bluetooth, earbuds, and a USB cable for PC synching and for using the phone as a modem (which requires a $39.99 monthly Power Vision plan from Sprint).

Performance

Within Sprint’s EV-DO range, connecting to the TV or music channel listings usually took 15 to 20 seconds. Once you’re on the channel listing, loading video snippets from channels such as CNNtoGo and E! took another 20 seconds. In all, it took about 35 to 40 seconds to load TV content. Movie trailers, such as the 2.5-minute preview for Spider-Man 3, were generally faster, loading within ten seconds (if you’re already online). Video frame rate was impressively smooth, though in a few cases the subject was out of focus, and there were noticeable banding and jaggy edges.

For music, it took seven to ten seconds to fetch a track’s information (preview and purchase options) plus another 20 seconds to download a song to the phone. Previewing a track, however, was instantaneous. Songs sounded very tinny on the M500’s speaker, which also lacked bass and could have used more volume. For louder sound, use the bundled earbuds. Another gripe: The Sprint user interface and menu system on this phone are scattered and confusing. Specifically, the TV channel listing is buried in the Media Player menu. You can also get to it through the unmarked (user-programmable) left navigation key.

Verdict

Considering the accessories you get (including the USB cable and earbuds), the Samsung M500 is a pretty good deal for enjoying Sprint’s plethora of multimedia content. You get burned, however, on the carrier’s steep prices for music downloads.