Samsung Reality SCH-u820 – Photo quality could have been better
For:
Intuitive display, 3.5 mm phone jack, 3 home screens, 3.2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS
Against:
Not as good as Samsung Rogue. Photo quality could have been better.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 is based on CDMA2000 1X technology, it has 128 MB internal memory, phone book capacity is of 1000 entries, downloadable content includes Screensavers, Wallpapers and Ringtones. The 3.2 megapixels camera has the following options for resolutions – 320 x 240, 800 x 480, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080, 640 x 480, 1024 x 768, 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536. The camera has 9x digital zoom.
The screen is three inches big and has a resolution of 240×400 pixels. Supported audio formats are AAC+, MP3, AAC and WMA. The battery of the phone has a rated talk time of 300 minutes and rated standby time is of 300 hours.
Razzle Dazzle:
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 is 4.23 inches long, 0.65 inches thick and 2.09 inches wide. The dimensions are quite similar to Rogue. Reality, on the other hand has a glossier sheen on the surface which easily attracts fingerprints. Color options are both red and black and on the back, there is an aesthetically appealing grid pattern.
Inside Dope:
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 looks similar to Samsung Rogue which we saw last year and once you take a look at the features, you will realize that it is a trimmed down version of the Rogue. Both the phones are from Verizon Wireless, have similar touch screens and sport same slide out QWERTY keyboards. Reality doesn’t have the same polished look as its step up cousin. It has EV-DO Rev. 0 and not EV-DO Rev. A. But we still think this is a good phone for people, it still has multiple home screens and lots of features that weren’t there on the Rogue. This phone is yours for $79.99 and requires a two year contract from the service provider. We liked the fact that Samsung gave us a 3.2 megapixel camera on this phone but the photo quality doesn’t live up to the 3.2 MP tag. We are not saying that the quality is horrendous but it could have been a bit better. We have tested lots of phones in our labs with 3.2 megapixel camera and we have seen much better quality. On the bright side, the call quality of this phone is stellar.
Display
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 has a three inch WQVGA screen which gives a resolution of 240×400 pixels with support for 262k colors. The display is not as good as Samsung Rogue. You can adjust the menu transition effect, home screen clock format, back light time, main menu shortcut icons, dial font size, menu font style and lock screen color font.
Navigation array and keyboard
Even though the Samsung Reality SCH-u820 is an all touch screen phone, there are a few physical keys like Send, End/Power, and Back/Clear keys. This trio is located beneath the display. On the left, there is the screen lock key and volume rocker button. On the right, there is the microSD card slot, speaker phone button, voice command button, and camera shutter button. You can use the voice command as well as speakerphone buttons for zooming in and out of the camera. On the top, there is the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Being a slider phone, the QWERTY keyboard is located beneath the phone. It is quite spacious and each button is raised a bit in order to enhance the typing experience. There is a discrete number row, navigation array and the typical function and shift buttons. A,W,S,D and navigation arrow buttons are used for gaming. This keyboard is a bit cramped as compared to Rogue and we won’t recommend you this phone if you are going to type loads on it.
Phone book and PIM features
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 has a 1000 entry phone book in which a single entry takes five phone numbers, IM screen name, 2 e-mail addresses, 2 street addresses, birthday, photo, company title and note. You can make groups of contacts and pair them up to a ring tone. In all, there are 17 ring tones to choose from. Basic features on the phone include timer, sketchpad, notepad, world clock, stop watch, alarm clock, calculator, calendar, speakerphone and vibrate mode. For advanced users, there are features like voice command, file viewer (for reading MS-Office documents), USB mass storage mode, stereo Bluetooth and GPS with VZ Navigator support.
Messaging features
Samsung Reality SCH-u820 comes with tons of messaging features, there is multimedia and text messaging and you also get instant messaging and voice messaging (Yahoo, Windows Live and AIM). There are three e-mail options mobile e-mail (downloadable application which gets e-mail on to your phone directly), corporate e-mail (which gets you calendar and work e-mail through RemoSync) and mobile e-mail which gives access to Web mail services like Gmail and Yahoo. Visual voice mail will costs you $3 a month.
Music player
Supported audio formats for the Samsung Reality SCH-u820 are AAC+, AAC, WMA and MP3. The handset supports EV-DO but just EV-DO Rev.0 supported and not EV-Do Rev. A but you can still access 3G services through Verizon like V Cast Videos for streaming your videos, along with V Cast Music with Rhapsody. Through this, you can buy and download music tracks from the air for $1.99.
Camera
The Samsung Reality SCH-u820 has a 3.2 megapixel camera which takes pictures in eight different resolutions from 320×240 pixels to 2,048×1,536 pixels. Settings include three settings for quality, autoshot mode, night shot mode, self timer, five presets for white balance, five effects for color, five modes for shooting, adjustable ISO, three options for metering, and variety of options for contrast, sharpness, saturation and brightness. Photo quality is good but we were expecting much better. The camera also lets you shoot videos and there are two options for resolutions. Settings for the camcorder mode are similar to that of the camera.
Verdict:
This handset might have a good feature set, but it is still miles behind Samsung Rogue. We will recommend you to go for Rogue instead of this handset.
