Samsung SLM Cell Phone Review - Making/Receiving Calls
|
Alfredo Padilla Published on December 17, 2007 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
Dialing Speed (6.62)
It took us an average of 3.02 seconds to dial a number on the Samsung SLM. This is a good, but not great time. You can see below that the only phone to do better than the Samsung SLM on this test was the LG Venus, but the differences amongst the phones are just a few hundredths of a second. With any flip phone like the SLM you're going to be slowed down by the time it takes to open up the phone. We found the keypad on the Samsung SLM a little difficult to get used to as well, it seems like it takes up less space than it could so we expect it to start higher than it actually does. These are minor issues though, and on balance it's easy to dial a number on the Samsung SLM.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Samsung SLM | 3.02 | 6.62 |
| Razr2 V8 | 3.45 | 5.80 |
| LG Venus | 2.64 | 7.58 |
| T-Mobile Shadow | 3.44 | 5.81 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 3.66 | 5.46 |
| Helio Fin | 3.64 | 5.49 |
Talk and End Buttons (4.0)
The talk and end buttons on the Samsung SLM are located to the left and right of the dedicated back key, below the D-Pad and above the Keypad. Like all of the Samsung SLM's buttons we found that they had very little key travel and tactile feedback when pressed. This is due to the single piece plastic construction of the controls and keypad, but it's bad even taking that into consideration. The Razr2 has a similar setup and their buttons had significantly more key travel. Although the buttons are differentiated by raised ridges, which is certainly an improvement compared to the Helio Fin that lacked any differentiators between keys, we still found them difficult to find by feel. They are two of the larger keys on the device so you probably won't hit another button by accident.
Call Management (6.0)
During a call the right soft key is assigned to mute while the left soft key opens a menu. From here you can put a call on hold, access your address book, send a text message or initiate a video share. As with the Helio Fin, which is also made by Samsung, the SLM has a whisper mode, which increases the sensitivity of the microphone so you can speak more quietly. About the only feature we were missing was the ability to record a phone call.
Startup to Call (3.32)
In this test we are trying to find out how long it takes for the phone to start up from being completely turned off and then make a call. This is important if your phone happens to be off and you then have to make a call. The Samsung SLM took an average of 30.1 seconds to start up and make a call, which is a little on slow side for a regular phone. You can see below that the worst offender on this test is the T-Mobile Shadow, who's score is typical of smart phones, but all of our other phones have times below 30 seconds. This makes the Samsung SLM the slowest phone on this test amongst our regular comparison phones.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Samsung SLM | 30.1 | 3.32 |
| Razr2 V8 | 27.72 | 3.61 |
| LG Venus | 25.11 | 3.98 |
| T-Mobile Shadow | 78.36 | 1.28 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 19.42 | 5.15 |
| Helio Fin | 28.18 | 3.55 |
Ring Volume (8.39)
The Samsung SLM's ring tone gets up to 83.9 decibels. This is a little on the slow side, but only by a couple of decibels. You can see below that there's a remarkable amount of consistency in ring tone volume across phones. We would have liked the Samsung SLM's ring tone to be a couple of decibels higher, but this shouldn't make too great a difference unless you're hard of hearing. To test ring volume we use a sound pressure meter from a distance of two inches and run through all of the ring tones on the phone at maximum volume.
| Cell Phone | Volume (decibels) | Score |
| Samsung SLM | 83.9 | 8.39 |
| Razr2 V8 | 85.5 | 8.55 |
| LG Venus | 85.8 | 8.58 |
| T-Mobile Shadow | 85.4 | 8.54 |
| Sony Ericsson W580i | 85.5 | 8.55 |
| Helio Fin | 85.6 | 8.56 |
Ringtone Customizability (5.0)
The Samsung SLM does allow you to use your own music files as ring tones, it recognized our AAC, Mp3 and WMA files as potential ring tones. There is a size limit however, our full length songs were not accepted but a short thirty second clip was. You can also use voice recordings you make on the phone as a ring tone. There's no software on the phone to create your own ring tones from music files. Despite this last omission and the limitation on the length of music files you can use as ringtones we were very happy to see that the SLM allowed you to use your own files instead of forcing you to purchase any ringtones form AT&T. Still, given the size limitation for files we're only awarding the SLM half the points we normally would for letting you use your own music files.
Non Audio Alerts (10.0)
We were very happy to see that the Samsung SLM's vibrate alert was very strong. We were easily able to feel it in our pants pocket and it should also be noticeable in a jacket pocket. You'll probably even be able to hear the vibration if the phone is in your bag. When a call comes in the small exterior display lights up with a ringing phone graphic and shows you the phone number that's calling. Given that many phones we've reviewed have poor vibration, the SLM's good performance in this category is very notable.
| Previous Next | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
