Verizon SMT5800 Cell Phone Review - Making/Receiving Calls
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Mark Brezinski Published on March 17, 2008 Comment on this |
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Summary
Really, the best we can say of the SMT5800 here is that it's a good bookkeeper. Its call logs are easy to sort and very long, and it keeps extensive timers, both for data and calls. Most of the other areas are either mediocre or negative. Users can't set their music as a ringtone, which is just absurd nowadays. The vibration feature is relatively weak. Pop-up reminders feature a picture of a blue phone on a white background, so you'd have to be staring at the screen in order to catch it. If you stripped away all its other features and judged the SMT5800 solely on its abilities as a phone, it would be mediocre at best.
Dialing Speed (4.60)
Talk and End Buttons (5.0)
The talk and end buttons on the SMT5800 are mediocre. They have an ok click to them, and are raised enough so you should be able to find them by touch. They aren't, however, differentiated enough given their odd positioning. Running your finger up the key, you'll only recognize your finger is on the key towards its center. Again, they aren't bad keys, just not particularly good.
Call Management (6.0)
Call history is located in the Start menu in the Calls folder, but you can also use the right soft key on the home screen. Calls are listed by number or name (if saved as a contact), and can be filtered by missed, incoming, or outgoing. If you click on a call, Your call history with that particular number will pop up, stating the date, time, and duration of the conversations you've had. There are also extensive timers for both calls and data.
When a call comes in, a screen will pop up that gives you a choice to answer or ignore it. If you deign the caller worthy of your time, the soft keys will let you either mute the call or access the menu. The menu contains shortcuts to various applications, like the calendar or the messaging application and will also let you set up conference calls with ease. The only option we missed was an option to record the call.
Startup to Call (2.14)
Starting with the phone off, we weren't able to get a call out for 46.69 seconds. Though this is a really long time to have to wait, it's the unfortunate side-effect of having a smart phone. Relative to other smart phones, the SMT4800 is about an average wait and as you can see below it could be much worse. If you have burning questions about our testing procedure, feel free to ask this link.
Ring Volume (10.31)
To test the phone's ring volume, we place its speaker two inches away from an instrument that measures sound pressure. We then cycle through the built-in ringtones, noting the highest decibel output. The SMT5800 was capable of outputting 103.1 decibels, which is slightly above average. It should be enough to catch your attention from your pocket, purse, or bag, depending on how noisy the world around you is.
Ringtone Customizability (0.0)
You can't set your music files to be ringtones, which is a ridiculous omission. This feature should not be omitted on a modern smart phone.
Non Audio Alerts (3.0)
Non-audio alerts on the SMT5800 aren't good. The vibration feature is weak and it'd be easy to miss it if it were in your pocked and you were walking. The pop-up screens that notify you of calendar appointments or calls are predominantly white. We'd recommend you keep your volume on if you don't want to miss an alert.
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