Samsung Memoir Cell Phone Review - Organizer
|
Marianne Schultz Published on April 10, 2009 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Out of the box, the Memoir is not capable of syncing PIM data with your computer, so look elsewhere if you want a device to keep data on your computer and phone in lock step together. It does have all of the standard PIM applications, except for a voice recorder, and can keep you on track for the most part if your schedule, contacts, and tasks needs aren't too demanding. | |
 |
|
Synchronization (0.0)
The Samsung's user guide mentions the Samsung PC Studio software in the very brief section on USB connection settings, but no information is provided in the guide on this application's capabilities to sync your PIM data between the Memoir and your computer. Taking a trip to Samsung's site also reveals nothing more than the download link. Regardless of this frustrating lack of information, we don't award points for synchronization capability when the software required is not included with the device. To begin with, we don't usually find feature phones with synchronization capabilities, so we're not disappointed with the Memoir here at all.
Alerts (6.0)
When you create a new calendar event, the reminder alert setting is off by default. When you go to turn it on, you have a number of pre-set options ranging from the time of the event itself to 1 week before the event, as well as a Customize option. When you choose to customize the alert timing, you are presented with a virtual dial where you can select a number between 0 and 99 and buttons to choose minutes, hours, or days, providing a lot of flexibility.
When you choose the Set Details option in the new event dialogue, you can also choose a custom alarm tone for each event. The vibrate mode is determined by the active Profile and cannot be set for an event reminder independently. When a calendar alert goes off, the entire screen lights up and an animated alarm clock vibrates in the middle. There is a slide-to-dismiss button to turn the alarm off completely. If you ignore the alert, it won't go off again, so you're a little stuck if you're not in the vicinity of your Memoir at the time an alert goes off, though you will be greeted with a missed alert message on the lock and home screens when you get back to it. There are no LED lights to flash to get your attention during or after an alert.
Over-the-Air PIM Sync (0.0)
The Memoir is not capable of other-the-air synchronization.
Adding Contacts (4.68)
To see how easy it is to create contacts, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a test contact's name and number is saved. There is a shortcut to the phone book in the menu bar at the bottom of the home screen by default, and from there, the new contact command is in the bottom left corner. It took an average time of 21.39 seconds to add test contacts to the Memoir, a longer-than-average time relative to comparison devices. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Creating a new contact
Annoyingly, if you access the phone book through the phone application, there is no option to add a new contact - you can only search through you contacts and choose a number to dial. What if you go to dial a contact and realize that they're not in your phone book as you'd thought? You have to back out of the phone application and go to the phone book application itself to create a new entry. This is poorly planned application interaction.
Another oddity we found is that once you create a new contact, there's no on-screen shortcut to take you back to the main contacts list. You can use the back button, but this isn't entirely intuitive since, technically, the last screen you were on was the new contact dialogue and the back button normally takes you right back to the last screen you were on.
Looking/Sorting/Search (5.0)
Contacts are listed alphabetically by first name by default, and there's no way to change this. You can do a QWERTY search by tapping in the find bar at the top of the contacts list, and every letter you type will narrow down the list of results, though this will only search by first name. There's also a magnifying glass on a tab on the right side of the screen and dragging it up and down will show you the alphabet, allowing you to get to a letter more quickly than scrolling through your entire contacts list.
Searching the contacts list
At the top of the screen in the main contacts list view is a drop-down menu where you can choose to show contacts, groups, or your speed dial list. All in all, the Memoir's contact search functions are more than adequate, but more sorting options to list contacts by last name, company, or other fields would be better.
Fields (5.40)
When you create a new contact, you are presented with 28 fields across 5 tabs, allowing you to save everything from the basics for every contact all the way to an anniversary and URL for each. Though there is no way to add more fields, nor are there any custom fields that you can name on your own, this is probably going to be more than enough for most users.
5 tabs of fields for a new contact
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.0)
The Memoir offers 9 speed dial numbers for each of the number keys on its virtual keypad, though the 1 key is reserved for voicemail, as is typical. The Memoir also has a voice command system that can be used to dial contacts, though it's a bit cumbersome to get to with no dedicated hardware button and no way to re-map existing buttons to create a shortcut, which kind of defeats the purpose of voice dialing in our eyes.
The voice command system
There's no need to train the system before you use it and you do not need to assign voice tags to your contacts in advance. We tried to dial our test contacts using the voice command system and the Memoir accurately all but one of them.
Adding Calendar Items (6.01)
To see how easy it is to add events to the calendar, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a test appointment is saved. By default, there is a shortcut to the calendar application on the home screen in the widget band on the left side, so there's no need to dig through the menu system to get there. Our test event includes a reminder 15 minutes before its start, and the Memoir does not have a 15-minute preset, so we had go to into the alert customization menu to make this happen, which added to the time a bit.
Creating a new calendar item
On the Memoir, it took an average of 16.63 seconds to add our test event, earning it a better score than the Nokia N96 and LG Dare. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
The Memoir's calendar has month, week, and day views. Unlike many other devices we've seen, including almost all of our comparison phones except for the iPhone 3G, the Memoir's month view is quite good, showing more than just the month grid. When you tap on a day with scheduled events, you'll see a list of these events at the bottom of the screen below the month grid - most devices we see don't make use of this space at all for some reason. Days with events are marked with a small triangle in the lower right hand corner.
The month view
As we often see, the week view gives the best overview of your availability, showing busy times as shaded blocks. Dragging your finger up and down the screen will scroll through the hour slots and arrows at the top allow you to move forward and backward through the weeks. In the calendar's settings menu, you can choose between Sunday or Monday as the first day of the week.
The week view
The day view is very basic, showing absolutely nothing if you have no events planned, and then a list of events when there are. Nothing fancy here whatsoever.
The day view - we hit the character limit with our 1:00 pm event
We did notice that event title field has a low character limit - when we typed in "Big Presentation" as a test event title, the last n didn't make it, a victim of said character limit. We've never seen a character limit this low before, so be prepared to be very succinct when naming your events.
Fields (8.0)
When you create a new event, you have 4 fields on the first screen to get you all of the basics: title, start date, start time, and reminder alert. The Set Details screen gives you 7 more fields to specify a location, set the alert tone, and define recurrence. Events cannot be assigned to a group or category, nor can you add invitees. This a sufficient number of fields to keep a personal calendar in check, though a business user will definitely want more.
Fields available when creating a new event
Adding ToDo/Task (5.18)
To see how easy it is to create a new task, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a new test task is saved. Getting to the Tasks application on the Memoir takes a little digging since it's in the Applications folder in the Main Menu with no shortcut to it on the home screen by default. It took an average of 19.31 seconds to complete this test on the Memoir, making it only a hair slower than the Nokia N96 and slower by a fair margin than the Motorola ZINE. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (3.5)
A drop-down box in the top right allows you to sort your tasks by priority, status, and due date. We don't award points for the last 2 sorting options, and the Memoir gets credit only for the priority sorting ability.
Options to sort tasks
Fields (6.0)
When you create a new task, you have 5 fields available, with another 4 available in the Set Details screen. The Memoir covers all the basics here, including the option to set a custom alert tone as you can in the calendar application.
Creating a new task
Adding Notes (3.63)
To see how easy it is to add a note, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a new test note is saved. Like the Tasks application, the Memoir's Memo application is a little buried with no shortcut to it on the home screen by default. It took an average of 13.78 seconds to complete this test on the Memoir, making it slower than the iPhone 3G but faster by far than the LG Dare and Nokia N96. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Note Interface (1.5)
The Memoir's Memo application interface is very basic, offering no sorting or search functions whatsoever. Notes entered are listed chronologically with the most recently-created or edited at the top. There's no way at all to flag notes or make some stand out more than others. This makes the Memo application simple to navigate, but it earns the Memoir few points relative to our comparison devices.
The main Memo view and creating a new memo
Note Formatting (0.0)
There is no way to format the text in any way or add media to memos.
Voice Memo (0.0)
The Memoir does not have a voice memo application.
| Previous Next | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
