Samsung Restore SPH-m570 – Eco friendly phone
For:
Made from recyclable materials, has good slider design, includes 2 megapixel camera, music player, EV-Do Rev. 0. and 3.5 mm headphones jack
Against:
Camera’s picture quality could have been better, some room for improvement in the call quality
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has a 2.66 inches screen with 240×320 pixels resolution. The 1160 lithium ion battery has rated talk time of six hours. The phone has two megapixel camera and music player. PIM features includes calculator, to-do/tasks, calendar and alarm. Voice features include speakerphone, recording, commands, and dialing. PhoneBook features includes caller groups, limited, Picture ID, Ring ID, Multiple numbers per contact.
Razzle Dazzle:
Restore is an eco friendly phone but it looks quite similar to the Rant. On the front, there is a numeric keypad and underneath, you get a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone feels quite sturdy even though it is made up of recycled material. The handset is 4.6 inches long, 0.6 inch thick, and 2.1 inches wide. It is a bit bigger than Reclaim and Rant. At 4.32 ounces, it is quite lightweight too.
Inside Dope:
When Samsung came up with Blue Earth, it became one of the few manufacturers to jump on eco friendly bandwagon. It had solar panels on the back. Then the company came out with Samsung Reclaim which was partially made up of recycled materials. Restore is Reclaim’s successor but with a different look. This handset is made up of 27 percent recycled material and 77 percent of its parts can be recycled, if you decide to throw it. There are no hazardous materials used in this phone, like PVC and the packaging is made up of recycled paper. Finally, the charger is Energy Star certified. Apart from those ‘green’ features, this is a pretty normal handset made for messaging enthusiasts. It has stereo Bluetooth, 2.0 megapixel camera, music player, EV-Do, GPS and full sized QWERTY keyboard. The cost of this phone is $49.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider. The handset has a slider design and it comes with a 3.5 mm jack for plugging in your standard headphones.
Display
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has a 2.4 inch QVGA display with resolution of 320×240 pixel and support for 262k colors. The crisp text and colorful images is quite pleasing to the eye. The big screen size will come in handy especially in the threaded conversations. The backlight time and brightness can be adjusted. You can arrange the menu interface in either list or grid view and on the bottom row, you have Sprint’s One Click interface.
Navigation array and keyboard
Navigation on the Samsung Restore SPH-m570 is different from previous Samsung messaging cellphones. There are two soft keys, back key, speakerphone key, send and end key, back key and instead of the standard toggle, Samsung has put in a square optical touch sensitive pad just like the one on Samsung Moment. Because of this, navigation is smoother and quicker but the scroll needs a learning curve. The two soft keys located on the display’s left are to be used when the phone is opened.
Under this navigation array, there is the number keypad which is very roomy. The keys are well separated from each other and are raised adequately above the surface for easy dialing. Slide the display on the right, you will get a full QWERTY keyboard. The built in accelerometer automatically changes the screen orientation from landscape to portrait mode when you open the phone. The phone also asks if you want to sent a text message or e-mail when you open the phone.
Phone book and PIM features
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has a 1000 entry limit phone book and a single entry takes multiple phone numbers, e-mail address, IM handle, birthday, URL, street address, company name, job title, etc. You can make groups of your friends and also assign them a photo for photo caller ID. There are 20 polyphonic ringtones to choose from. You can also make a backup of your phone book by storing the contacts on Sprint’s servers.
PIM features on the Samsung Restore SPH-m570 include voice memo recorder, memo pad, world clock, tip calculator, calculator, calendar, and alarm clock. Some of the advanced features on the phone include multimedia and text messaging, instant messaging, USB mass storage, voice command features, and stereo Bluetooth. There is also an eco calculator which measures the carbon usage, we saw this on LG Remarq too.
Music player
Samsung Restore SPH-m570’s music player is generic. Album art is supported and you can also edit and create playlists on the fly. The shuffle and repeat modes are there and you can send the music player in the background if you want to do anything else.
Camera
This is a bit disappointing on the Samsung Restore SPH-m570. We expected a better resolution camera but got a 2.0 MP one. It is not that bad but we are now used to seeing 3 MP cameras on such phones now. There are five options for resolution, three settings for quality, self timer, ten fun frames, five effects for color, digital zoom, brightness adjustment, spot and center metering, night mode, four shutter sounds along with silent option and five presets for white balance. We were surprised to see mosaic and panorama shot options. Photo quality is strictly OK. Colors in the images are decent but there is too much noise. The camera also lets you record videos. Once you have clicked photos or videos, you can upload them to Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Photobucket, MySpace, or Sprint online album. For storing your data, there is 61 MB of internal memory and the microSD card slots supports up to 16 GB of memory cards.
Games and personalization
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has some demo games like Texas HoldEm Poker, Bejeweled, and Diner Dash Flo on the Go. If you want more, there is always the Sprint Store. The cell phone can be personalized with ringtones, wallpapers, and screensavers.
Call quality
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has god call quality, we could hear our friends clearly as the volume was loud enough. There was no distortion or interference. The voices sounded natural which is a big plus. On the other side, our friends said that our voice was machine like and harsh. There was also a bit of distortion occasionally. There were some echo issues and voice sounded hollow. The speakerphone calls sounded tinny.
Battery life
Samsung Restore SPH-m570 has a rated battery life of six hours for talk time. We haven’t tested the battery for this handset yet.
Verdict:
This is a phone made for eco-consicous people, it is made up of recycled material and the phone is a good messaging device.
