Samsung keeps sending me phones I like. I’m still not 100% on board with their OS, but every phone they send is better an better. Recently, they sent out the Samsung Impression. Right out of the box, I turned it on to see the AMOLED screen and I was not let down. However, a phone is much more than it’s fancy-pants screen, so I reviewed the whole thing for you.
Seriously… Drool-worthy
When I pulled the phone out, before I even turned it on, I felt I was in for a treat. The form factor is nicely a bit small, but not too small, and the smoothed edges all over the place just look very clean and sleek. I turned the phone on and it instantly became the first phone I’ve reviewed that I made a point to show off to everyone in the office. What I was showing off was the AMOLED display. It’s a bit like experiencing HD for the first time. You don’t think there could be that much difference until you see it in person. After seeing for yourself, it’s clear that the technology is worthy of its praise. Like HD television, I won’t say that I’ll never own another product without this technology, but it’s certainly a selling point.
Other physical features
Other than the display, one of the most notable physical features of the Impression is the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The phone has a software keyboard, too, but a physical keyboard is much easier to type on if done well and this one is done pretty well. The buttons are the right size and it just feels right. On the bottom of the phone’s face are the Send, End, and Back buttons we’re all used to by now. It also has the volume buttons and camera shutter that most have as well as the ports to charge or dock the phone or plug in headphones.
Like most of Samsung’s smart phones, this one is equipped with a decent camera that weighs in at 3.0 megapixels. The phone is very comfortable to hold and carry and the camera quality is great, as usual for Samsung. The design of the phone, over all, is great. I love how they put it together.
Software and ease of use
As I said at the start of the review, a phone should be more than it’s external appearance. I’ve also stated that I’m not a huge fan of the OS. I like to customize my phone with my choice of thousands of applications, and I haven’t seen that so much here. I do like the icon tray that can be hidden and everything seems very stable and clean, though. One thing I noticed right away is that the touch screen on the Impression was much more responsive than on other phones from varying brands. This was a big point-earner for me. If you’re going to be touching the screen as 90% of the operation of the phone, it should be smooth and responsive. The software was largely the same full suite of applications that Samsung normally provides, along with feature-rich camera functionality, which is another thing I look forward to in Samsung phones.
Conclusions
While I’m still not completely on board with the OS, the Impression is by far the best phone I’ve reviewed in a while. For the money, it’s a great smart phone that promises to provide a better looking picture than any of your friends’ phones while taking crisp photos and video, giving you a full keyboard and responsive touch interface and looking pretty good to boot.
I can be pretty picky about the sponsored posts I accept because I want to post about stuff I would actually use or buy myself. Today is no exception, because today’s post is about a product that I think is timely, useful, and reasonably priced. It’s iPod / iPhone to iTunes Transfer software called iPodRobot.
One of the things that I’ve heard people complain about with the iPhone is that you have to sync it with iTunes to get files on and off the device. I’ve personally felt that was annoying with my own iPhone. Almost every other smart phone on the planet lets you connect to it as a mass storage device and access your videos, photos, etc. This software works as a bridge between your computer and the data on your phone, eliminating the need for iTunes as part of the equation. It’s a great idea and I’m a little shocked that I haven’t seen it before.
When the software starts up, it looks for your phone and connects to it. Then you just select the folders or files on your phone to transfer and tell it to move them to your computer. After confirming (or changing) the local folder, the files are moved. There’s not much to it, really. The one thing I was unable to find (and isn’t listed as an option on the site) was uploading files to the phone from my computer. The lack of bi-directional transfer was a drawback to me. Looking at the glass as half full, you can download a free trial to try it out, and what it does do it does well and without needing any specialized knowledge. For $20, it’s a nice piece of software to have if you don’t want to (or can’t) sync with iTunes for some reason.
While I was on the site, I checked out their Free iPod / iPhone Video Converter software. It did what it promised and pretty quickly. I was able to convert an AVI Flip video from one of my previous reviews into an iPhone-friendly format and just like the transfer software, this had a simple interface and just worked fast and clean out of the box. Although the ipodrobot software lacks a valuable feature I was looking for, I gave the company extra points for delivering otherwise very solid, stable, and easy to use products.
If you’re like me, you couldn’t wait to jailbreak your iPhone 3G to get back some of your apps after upgrading to 3.0. If you’re really like me, you got the following error during Cydia’s updating process on your newly jailbroken phone:
“Internal Error, Could not perform immediate configuration (2) on essential”
Of course, my iPhone still worked fine, but Cydia was useless to me, Icy wouldn’t come up, and jailbreaking the thing served no purpose. Not being one to give up, I did a quick search and this post on modmyi.com saved the day. All I had to do was run redsn0w again and not check the “Install Icy” box this time. A few minutes later, I was back to installing Cycorder again so I can record video without buying an iPhone 3G S (yet)…
Isn’t that a lot better? (If you’re unsure, the answer is yes, it IS a lot better). The above screen shows a completed Cydia upgrade. After my upgrade, I re-installed Cycorder and there was even an old video I had recorded before the jailbreak.
Lesson of the day: If at first everything blows up, Google the error message and keep trying until you attain victory!
Guess what time it is. As always, I’m starting with the Twitter suggestions. Don’t forget, if you want a link to your Twitter account, just follow me on Twitter and tweet the following:
@joetech I want that free link in your Bookmark Friday post : http://www.joetech.com/suggests/bmftw
This week, we had four people request a link:
PamHoffman
Bio: Best Known for Producing Natl Space Society’s 14th Annual Space Development Conference; Space Entrepreneur, using IM as a stepping stone to the stars!
Site: http://seminarlist.blogspot.com
And on to the bookmarks (just a few again this week)!
Get creative with Google Chrome – Google likes to have creative contests now and then. In this one, see how creative you can be in duplicating the Google Chrome logo.
Increase subscriptions with incentives – This post on JohnChow.com explains how you can increase your subscriber numbers greatly by offering incentives. Did I mention that I’m having another contest?
Save a couple hundred bucks – Once again, Microsoft is trying very hard to be in the search game and offering killer incentives. This one lets you save 35% on your purchase at AT&T. For a $600 iPhone, that would be $210 off. Not bad.
Million Pixel Twitter Page – Once upon a time, Alex Tew made the Million Dollar Home Page. Years later, with Twitter becoming the next Facebook (well, maybe), someone basically just applied the old idea with a new limitation.
High speed camera trigger – This is yet another cheap way to build a high speed camera trigger for amazing photos.
The Sims 3 – I’m not big on paying for games that will suck up all my free time, but I always liked the Sims series and I think I might actually buy and play this one.
One man dance party (video) – This guy dances like crazy until random people start joining in, eventually becoming maybe a hundred or more all dancing with him.
New religion: Pyrasphere – Looks like a joke, but it scared me for a minute with the celeb appearance.
