Samsung X427M Phone (Cingular)

Rating:
Summary: OK starter phone, great Cingular Service though
Review: Because my wife absolutely loves flipphones (I hate them), I got this phone for her on a Cingular Family Share plan. To me the phone seems cheap, but it does have a nice color and the buttons are very easy to press. The screen is also very bright and easy to read. The ringtone quality is OK, but a lot better than my cheap Nokia 3586. The phone does feel a bit fragile and it seems like it can't take one drop with out breaking. But for the most part the phone gets the job done, no extra features, but what do you expect for one of Cingular's cheapest phones? You can download ringtones for it if you desire. I am not into downloading ringtones, but my wife loves it. One thing I do suggest though is going into the internet settings and move the settings from express profile, to a profile that doenst have the login and passwords already stored. By doing this you prevent any accidental connection to the internet. The middle button is so easy to fat finger and press and that button's sole purpose is to connect you to the internet which can cost some serious $$$ if you unknowingly leave it on. By moving from the express profile to another one, whenever you accidently press the internet button, you will just get an error saying, "Service Not available", in other words, you can't connect to the internet and you won't be charged for accidental connections. I think that it was purposely made like this so they can get money from accidental connections, but good thing you can prevent that from happening.

My last service was with MetroPCS and depsite it having unlimited talk time anytime, $52.08 was entirely too much to pay for crappy service that only works in Atlanta. I was lucky to get one bar while sitting at my second floor cube at work. In the elevator, the phone would just say "Serching for service.." Did I mention the dropped calls? I stopped using the phone because in the rare instances where the call wasn't dropped, I couldn't hear the other person on the other side half the time anyway. My Metro phone's battery was dead at least 2 weeks before I decided to go to Cingular, and I never even bothered charging it up. Cingular's service is miles ahead of Metro, full bar strength most everywhere I go, and even 3 bars in an elevator! I can actually hear the other person on the phone and don't have to worry about important calls being dropped because of poor signal strength. Plus Cingular has rollover and unlimted mobile to mobile and free nights and weekends. I don't use the cell that much, so my 850 minute plan Family share plan may be overkill, but with my wife's phone on my plan its the same price (59.99 + 9.99 additonal line) as the family share 600 minute plan (49.99 + 19.99 additional line), so why not get the extra 150 minutes? Cingular Customer service occasionaly does have you on hold for a long time, but for the most part their reps are very friendly and helpful, unlike MetroPCS.

I highly recommend Cingular, the phone is your own personal taste though. It gets the job done, but thats about it.

Rating:
Summary: Good, basic phone - missing some helpful features
Review: I got this phone as a replacement for my venerable and trusty Siemens S46. I'll comment solely on -the phone- and not on the service (which has been fine).

Good points:
- Fantastic screen
- Good to excellent reception
- Fairly simple menu navigation* (note caveats below)
- Included applications, media, games, etc. are high quality
- Very thin and light, even with battery
- Excellent battery life (5-7 days on standby)

Bad points:
- The button configuration on this phone is very strange - maybe this is just due to the Cingular configuration, but I keep thinking the largest button (with the Cingular logo) should be "Dial" by default, when instead it is inexplicably mapped to flip over to GPRS mode.
- The phonebook lookup is -awful-.
- There is no copy to/from SIM card feature. This means that if you want to, say, copy phonebook entries without buying the USB cable, you have to enter them by hand.
- The headset jack is very hard to open and suffers from a loose connection and static.
- The keys have no raised dots to center yourself without looking at the phone - while hard to describe, this makes it very hard to dial the phone with one hand, something which I have been able to easily do with most other phones.

Rating:
Summary: Love my Samsung phone
Review: I love my little phone. The battery stays charged. You can hear loud and clear. Cingular is great. DONT get a phone on Cingular online they are totaly useless. Go to the Cingular store and buy it. They know what they are doing.

Rating:
Summary: Cingular and Phone = Great
Review: I personally have the Samsung X247M. It's a great phone for those who don't need a Camera Phone. It has lot of features like text messaging from providers like AIM and Yahoo. It has Lots of great Ringtones. Great Color Screen! Simple, Small and Fun! It lets Me - Be Me! You can also find the phone on http://www.cingular.com


Josh R. Jennings
Media Solutions Consultant

Rating:
Summary: A light simple phone to carry around
Review: I've used this phone for 1 month. I like it so far.
Pros:
1. The battery life is good. One charge lasts 5 days for me. I don't talk much though.
2. This phone does not come with good ringtones. But you can buy one with average $2 from Cingular or Samsung website. Samsung's Samsung Fun site also has a few free ringtones.
3. The reciption and the charging time are acceptable.
4. People in the phonebook can be assigned to different user groups, and each group can have its own ringtone set.
5. Just dial "1" to connect to your voicemail box. Pre-set for me, at least. You can set yourself too.
6. Hold on "#" to turn the whole phone in silent mode, an easy thing to do before a meeting. And the same action brings all previous settings back.
7. Speed-dial list is seperate from the phone book. My previous phones are like the first 9 numbers in the phone book are speed dial numbers. This phone is like you can pick a person/number from your phone book to fill in a speed-dial position.

Cons:
1. No camera, if that's what you want. I don't need that though.
2. You have to open the clip to see the time. And the time is in small font, unless you select "Digital Clock" wallpaper.
3. Not related to this phone though, customer support guys in Cigular are mostly not very knowledgeable. Don't ask them questions other than your plan or bill.
4. The big Cingular GPRS connection button is quite annoying, if you are not going to use this phone to connect to the internet. The review below about setting it to an unexisting profile is gold. Detailed steps: Menu -> My MEdia -> MEdia Net -> Settings, pick those unset ones, like "Profile4 Info", and Select.
5. Once a phone is fully charged, there is no message like "Charge Completed".
6. You can not set individual alerts. Like I don't want to hear the annoying alert when a batterying is running out, but I do want to hear an alert if I get a text message. No, I cannot do that. I have to turn all alerts off.
7. No IR port.
8. The earphone has some contact problem. (Maybe only mine.)

Rating:
Summary: OK phone, complicated interface
Review: We just switched to Cingular, b/c Sprint wouldn't give us free phones for re-upping another 2 year contract. I like this phone-- it doesn't get hot like my old dinosaur did. However, the interface is a bit complicated. Why do I have to flip through so many menus to check voice mail, etc?? Also, I have yet to figure out an easy way to turn the ringer off. My old phone had a one-button solution. Guess I'll check the owner's manual.

Oh, and the tip from the reviewer below about putting a password on the internet is GOLD.