Samsung Juke Cell Phone Review - Organizer
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Mark Brezinski Published on November 05, 2007 Comment on this |
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Synchronization Ease of Use (0.0)
The Juke doesn't support PIM synchronization.
Alerts (7.0)
The Juke is certainly a persistent little phone. When an appointment notification sounds off, it rings or vibrates for a solid minute before stopping. It then snoozes for two minutes before it tries again. Though the on-screen alert isn't eye catching, you can't miss it when you pick the phone back up. Regardless, its diligent vibrating or ringing is sure to catch your attention.
Over-the-Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The Juke doesn't support over-the-air PIM synchronization.
Address Book
Adding Contacts (6.86)
Our adding contacts time test determines how much of a hassle its namesake action is. It stands to reason that time is a good measurement for this, as it indicates either a complicated series of inputs or waiting for the phone to respond, neither of which are optimal. We begin the timer with the phone in a closed, unlocked standby position, and stop the timer as we save each test contact. We pull our test contacts from a pool of many examples, as testing a wide variety of sample contacts gives a better, more representative average time.
Adding contacts on the Juke is the standard BREW affair. You first type in the number, hit the soft key assigned to "Save," and then multi-tap in the name. The Juke is able to perform these tasks in an average of 14.57 seconds. This isn't the fastest time, most likely because of the "multi-tap in their name" step; multi-tap is incredibly slow, especially with names that feature two consecutive letters that use the same key. The only way to get a significantly faster time would be with a phone that has a full QWERTY, or maybe a SureType keypad. The Juke is also slowed down by its unfamiliar d-pad setup. We actually had to retest several times because when the time came to hit a soft key, we always reached up to the d-pad.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Samsung Juke | 14.57 | 6.86 |
| LG Chocolate Vx8550 | 20.50 | 4.88 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 22.74 | 4.40 |
| Razr2 V9m | 19.26 | 5.19 |
| Samsung Blast | 19.45 | 5.14 |
| Apple iPhone | 20.86 | 4.79 |
Looking/Sorting/Search (1.5)
Much like other BREW phones before it, the Juke doesn't score very well in this category. Contacts are organized by name, specifically the first letter of whichever name you insert first into the single name field. You can therefore have your contacts sorted by last name if you input every contact as "last, first." This isn't good functionality. You also can't sort by any other criteria; they're organized by name and name alone. The phone does have groups, but they're only used for sending out mass MMS messages.
As for searching, there is a small "Go To" search bar at the bottom, but searching treats the entire name field as one item. This means regardless of the order you entered the first and last name, you can only sort by the foremost entry: searching for "Smith" will turn up "Smithy Brown" but not "John Smith."
Fields (2.6)
The Juke has 13 fields for creating a contact. The Juke allows you to store multiple addresses and numbers for each contact, as well as a picture and ringtone. You can also add a few contacts to a list of emergency contacts, called ICE (in case of emergency). This puts them on a special short list you can access by using the left soft key on the home screen. You can just use this list as a shortcut for commonly dialed numbers if you want; either way it's a nice addition.
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.33)
The Juke can hold almost 1,000 speed dial entries. The list extends to 999, but a handful (about five) are set to things like voice mail and checking on billing information. Some would say 1,000 speed dial entries is excessive, but we appreciate excess when it comes to features, in spite of our inability to fathom a scenario when said features could be used to the fullest.
The Juke also has decent voice recognition software. It was able to recognize four out of our five test names. The fifth name it couldn't pick out specifically, so it returned a list of possible contacts and proceeded to read those off. Since our fifth name was consistently included in those lists, we decided to give it partial points as opposed to none at all.
Calendar
Adding Calendar Items (7.29)
For this timing test we begin with the phone closed and unlocked, and end as we save our test calendar item. Again, we do these timing tests as a means of judging how taxing the process is. This could involve trudging through menus or waiting for the phone to catch up with you; if the phone is responsive and keeps its applications within easy reach, it gets a lower time and better score.
Adding calendar items seems to have a good score, but it's definitely an area where the Juke's bite-sized software lets the phone down a bit. The process is as easy as using the d-pad down shortcut on the home screen, then entering in a simple appointment: lunch at 12 p.m. tomorrow, reminder 15 minutes before. Given the shortcut, the Juke should be able to do this faster. As it is, navigating around fields is difficult, given only three can fit on the screen at a time. We couldn't set the phone's T9 to a default, so we had to multi-tap out "Lunch" (we tried to activate T9 during the trial, but doing that cost as much time as it saved). The 15-minute reminder is a default, but we had to scroll down to actually switch the reminder on. We thought the entire process was cumbersome, except for the initial shortcut, which obviated substantial menu crawling.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Samsung Juke | 13.72 | 7.29 |
| LG Chocolate Vx8550 | 6.48 | 15.43 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 14.04 | 7.12 |
| Razr2 V9m | 14.48 | 6.91 |
| Samsung Blast | 26.46 | 3.78 |
| Apple iPhone | 18.92 | 5.29 |
Calendar Views (3.17)
The Juke only has two different calendar views: day and month. Neither are particularly well laid out. The month view is the typical checkerboard of days and numbers. Days that have events scheduled on them get a different colored dog ear in each corner. Highlighting a day with events scheduled tells you how many events there are for that day, but doesn't give any information about those events. Day view is simply a list of all the scheduled appointments for that day, listed chronologically. Each item in the main list includes the item's title and start time. Viewing the item displays the rest of its information. This is fairly basic software, which is understandable given the Juke's focus on music.
Fields (6.0)
The Juke only has six fields, all of which are basic. The most advanced field it has is recurrence, which can be set to daily, monthly, weekly, or yearly. Some phones don't feature recurrence, but most modern phones are starting to, regardless of their focus. Two fields we would have liked to see are location and a free-form notes category.
ToDo/Tasks
Adding To Do/Task (0.0)
The Juke can't add tasks, and therefore gets a zero for this section.
To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (0.0)
N/A: can't create tasks.
Fields (0.0)
N/A: can't create tasks.
Notes
Adding Notes (3.13)
This test requires the phone to start in a closed, unlocked position, involves typing in a short sample note, and ends when this note is saved. Again, we use time as a means of representing how much of a bother the process is, as both endless menus and lag are annoying.
It takes the Juke slightly less than 16 seconds to type out a note. Again, the inability to set T9 as a default meant we had to set it during the trial. The note is simply, "Lunch 12pm tomorrow," but it required multiple text entry mode switches. The fastest combination was a combination of T9 and multi-type. We could've used T9 the whole way, but it took a long time to input numbers this way.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Samsung Juke | 16.00 | 3.13 |
| LG Chocolate Vx8550 | 13.73 | 3.64 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 12.00 | 4.17 |
| Razr2 V9m | 13.96 | 3.58 |
| Samsung Blast | 11.69 | 4.28 |
| Apple iPhone | 12.66 | 3.95 |
Note Interface (2.0)
Notes rarely have complex interfaces, but even so, the Juke's note interface is noticeably simple. Other than the text body itself, the only options you have when writing a note is the type of text entry. There are no options for font editing or even giving notes a title. Notes are displayed in the order they were created, from newest to oldest. No information other than the body of the text itself is stored. This is as bare-bones as a notes application can get.
Note Formatting (0.0)
You can't format notes in any way.
Voice Memo (0.0)
Strangely, while the phone can record calls, it doesn't have a voice memo application.
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