CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
REVIEWS
» Cell phones
» Cameras
» Camcorders
» Archive » Resource Center
» Compare » Expert guides
» RSS & Alerts » Ask The Editors
Home / Review Center / Cell phones / Multimedia phones
Samsung Access multimedia phone reviewBy Philip Berne, Saturday 10 May 2008
GALLERY
Samsung Access
Enlarge
Samsung Access
Enlarge
Samsung Access
Enlarge
Samsung Access
Enlarge
Samsung Access
Enlarge
Samsung Access
Enlarge
 
 
AT&T's Mobile TV service makes its way into our hands on the Samsung Access. Were our eyes glued to the screen?

Review summary of the Samsung Access:
Scoreboard »      Features »      Side-by-side »      Gallery »
Samsung Access The Samsung Access is a good phone for watching AT&T's mobile TV service. It isn't great for making calls. There are better phones for messaging. Web browsing is better than average, but the camera is atrocious. Music is unremarkable, but present. Above all, though, if all you want is a phone that can help you watch "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" on your train ride home, this is a good choice. We'd like some more programming, but the networks are fairly represented, with one exception, and the included movie and music hodge-podge channels have some fun programs in the lineup. There will be better phones to come, but this is still a nice start for mobile TV. Release: May 2008. Price: $150.
Pros: Mobile TV looks much better than streaming clips, more like real television. Phone is simply designed, like a small TV set.
Cons: Call quality lacking. Other features good, but seem like also-rans. TV quality wasn't perfect, and we're already missing advanced features, like DVR.
Poor
Mediocre
52%
GOOD
Very good
Excellent
Full Samsung Access Review:
Design - Good

The Samsung Access looks like a phone made for watching television. In pictures it's a bit uglier than in person, but it's still boxy and square, with shiny accents reminiscent of a 70's-era boob tube. Thankfully, the phone doesn't need an antenna for TV reception, and you can easily jump right into programming by pressing the dedicated TV button. The screen is nice and wide, and it takes up plenty of space on the phone's candybar front. When the picture quality is good, colors can be bright and images crisp and clear.

The interface is standard Samsung, and we like the pop-up style hierarchical menus that give you access to multiple levels of menu options on one screen. The silver keys picked up fingerprints like a CSI team, but that was our only real problem with this phone's otherwise unremarkable design.

Calling - Good

Calls made from the Samsung Access didn't sound great, even though we had four bars of reception on AT&T's HSDPA network in lower Manhattan. Listeners reported a heavily digitized sound, with underlying static that seemed to get louder during pauses between speech. Otherwise, the phone packs most of the features we like to see, though it did come up a bit short. Bluetooth for handsfree calling worked fine with all our headsets. Conference calling was easy enough, but required a step into the menus, while we like to simply press the Call button to join calls. The speakerphone was loud, but not impressively so. Considering the stereo speakers the phone packs for TV watching, we expected it to be louder. The phone unfortunately lacks voice dialing options, a feature we find crucial while driving.

Messaging - Good

Again, no surprises in the messaging department, especially if you've been keeping up with recent AT&T multimedia phones, like the Motorola Z9. You get the standard set of tools, like SMS and MMS messaging, IM for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, as well as AT&T's e-mail client. Unfortunately, Google is left out of the IM and e-mail party, though Juno somehow gets a seat at the POP3 table. The keyboard is pretty average for typing. Keys were plenty wide, thanks to the phone's slab-like design, but they were also pretty slick. Still, we had no trouble multi-tapping messages.

Video - Very good

If you didn't come to this phone looking for great video, there's really no other reason to be interested. In terms of video, the Samsung Access with AT&T's Mobile TV service delivers. It looks much better than the older Cellular Video service, and handily defeats the streaming clips in terms of quality, responsiveness and programming. We had a great time keeping tabs on CNN and watching "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. Best of all, at 9PM ESPN is showing the NBA Playoffs live.

The service isn't perfect. Some shows looked a bit blocky or blurry, and we definitely found compression artifacts. Still, the service is so much better than what current users are used to, it's surprising that this phone also includes the Cellular Video app. Perhaps this is so customers can compare and feel better about paying $15/month for the TV service.

We'd also like to see a few other improvements. Currently, AT&T offers 11 channels, including most of the major networks, though Disney-owned ABC is absent, so there's no General Hospital for us to watch. We'd also like DVR capabilities, and maybe dual tuners for PIP, like we saw on some Samsung phones in Korea. Also, more coverage would be nice, as the service conked out about 20 miles west of New York City on our commute home to Morristown, NJ.

Music - Good

Though the Samsung Access gets AT&T's best video service, for some reason the carrier has left out the new AT&T Music store. You still get AT&T Music capabilities, so Napster tracks will play nicely on the phone. But it's about time AT&T finally made their over-the-air download store ubiquitous and launched it on all their multimedia phones. Otherwise, the music player was very basic and lacked good onboard features for playlists and EQ settings. Stereo Bluetooth worked well, but the stereo speakers on the phone were a disappointment.

Web browsing - Good

The phone actually did a fine job of rendering pages, but we had other issues with Web browsing on the Samsung Access. Our homepage came through cleanly, with images and text nicely rendered. Still, the page loaded very slowly, even with plenty of bars of coverage on AT&T's 3G network. Navigating pages was a chore, as well, as the browser jumped link-to-link and scrolled very slowly down longer pages.

Camera - Medioce

The camera on the Samsung Access continues the unfortunate Samsung tradition of horrible lenses on otherwise fine devices. Pictures taken with the 1.3-megapixel camera came out looking blurry, washed out and noisy. Even on the small screen, pictures were almost entirely unusable. If you need proof that Bigfoot is in your house, grab something else, because these pictures won't fool anybody.

Value - Good

AT&T and Verizon have an interesting pricing game going for their mobile TV devices. The Access costs $200, which is pretty high for a phone that does very little well outside of Mobile TV. The Samsung u620 on Verizon Wireless, a comparable TV phone, costs half as much. For service, Verizon Wireless offers a TV plan for $25/monthly. AT&T offers a plan for $15/month, and another "TV Plus" plan for $30 that includes unlimited data and Cellular Video. We'd skip that one, and just avoid Web browsing and data usage on this phone. Over the course of your contract, the $10/month you save on AT&T's phone will make up for the difference in price between the carrier's phones. We also could see an early price drop in this phone's future, as $100 seems much more competitive, and both AT&T and Verizon Wireless also have higher-end multimedia phones from LG that use their respective TV services and fill in the top of the price range.


Price and availability

The Samsung Access is available now from AT&T for $150 with a contract agreement. A mail-in rebate of $50 is available, when signing up for a qualifying plan.

Best Cell Phones
Name Score Price Carrier
C
Sony Ericsson W995 73% $600Unlocked
Sony Ericsson W760 72% $100AT&T
LG enV Touch 72% $100Verizon Wireless
LG Voyager 70% $80Verizon Wireless
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic 70% $50T-Mobile
LG Versa 70% $200Verizon Wireless
LG Chocolate 3 69% $80Verizon Wireless
LG Lotus 69% $100Sprint
Samsung Instinct S30 69% $130Sprint
Samsung Highnote 68% $100Sprint
Samsung Rant 68% $50Sprint
Samsung Impression 68% $200AT&T Wireless
LG enV3 68% $80Verizon Wireless
Nokia 5610 XpressMusic 67% $100T-Mobile
Samsung Instinct 67% $130Sprint
Motorola Zine ZN5 67% $100T-Mobile
Samsung Eternity 66% $150AT&T
Samsung Memoir 66% $250T-Mobile
Motorola RAZR VE20 64% $100Sprint
LG Rumor2 64% $50Sprint
Sanyo Katana Eclipse 63% $50Sprint
Samsung Behold 63% $150T-Mobile
Motorola RAZR2 V9x 63% $150AT&T
Motorola Krave ZN4 62% $180Verizon Wireless
Nokia 7205 62% $130Verizon Wireless
Click here to see full and advanced chart »
 
 
 
NEW IN-DEPTH REVIEWS
Cell Phones & Smartphones
 
Digital Cameras
 
Camcorders
HOTTEST
Smartphones
 
Cell Phones
 
Touch Phones
TOP STORIES
Samsung Jet
 
Samsung Omnia 2
 
Nokia N86
Nokia E72
 
Sony Ericsson Yari
 
Sony Ericsson Satio
HTC Hero runs Google Android with new HTC Sense interface
 
HTC Firestone with Snapdragon Technology on Its Way
 
iPhone 3GS review
NEW CELL PHONE RELEASES
RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip
Apple iPhone 3GS
Nokia 5630 XpressMusic
HTC Touch Pro 2
Samsung Omnia HD
HTC Snap
Sony Ericsson T707
LG enV Touch
LG enV3
Nokia N86
Casio Exilim C721
Nokia N97
UPCOMING CELL PHONES
Samsung i7500
LG Viewty Smart
LG GD910
Sony Ericsson C903
Sony Ericsson W995
RIM BlackBerry Tour
Samsung Pixon12 M8910
HTC Hero
T-Mobile Dash 3G
CELL PHONE RESOURCE CENTER
Best phones
 
Expert guides
 
Ask the Editors
3+ inch screen phones
 
Wi-Fi phones
 
Concept phones
» Feature Search & Compare
» Side-By-Side Comparison
» Upcoming Releases
» Carriers
Unlocked, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, More...
» Brands
Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Palm, More...
» User Types
Average Joe, Business users, Calling addicts, Fashion conscious users, Globetrotters, High-res addicts, Internet addicts, Multimedia enthusiasts, Music aficionados, Outdoor enthusiasts, TV addicts, Video lovers, More...
NOW IN PHONES
BlackBerry Pearl Flip review
 
Samsung Jet
 
Casio Exilim C721 review
 
Sprint HTC Snap review
 
BlackBerry Tour takes Verizon Wireless global
Samsung Omnia 2
Nokia N86
Nokia E72
Next 25 stories
MUST READ
CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
MP3 players
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
INTERNET TABLETS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
GPS NAVIGATORS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
HDTVs
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMCORDERS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
About us | Site map | How to advertise | Feedback | RSS Feeds | | Archive
Copyright 1999-2009 © infoSync World