Our Samsung SGH-A777 review looks at Samsung's newest slider, which brings GPS and faster 3G networking to the AT&T slider family. Is it a worthwhile addition?
Review summary of the Samsung SGH-A777:
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 The Samsung SGH-A777 is the perfect example of today's mid-range feature phone. The phone packs almost all of the features we like to see on a 3G phone, but none of them are terribly exciting. There's a few bells and whistles, but no real innovation here. In fact, in terms of hardware design, this is one of our least favorite Samsung sliders, as the company has produced some slick models in the past. For the price with a contract, we're not sure the SGH-A777 is worth the upgrade over the Samsung SGH-A737, as GPS navigation is just about all you're getting for $80 (at launch), but if that price drops to nil, this would be a better choice for someone who wants a basic, easy slider to just barely keep up with the Joneses. Release: December 2008. Price: $80.
Pros: Feature-rich slider with all of AT&T's standard 3G multimedia apps. Nice paint job.
Cons: Boring menus and interface design. Hardware didn't appeal to us as much as other Samsung sliders. Nothing exciting here, just the standard carrier stuff.
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Full Samsung SGH-A777 Review:
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Design - Good
The Samsung SGH-A777 is a shiny, boxy slider that seems like a step away from Samsung's normal slider aesthetic. It isn't nearly as slick as, say, the Helio Mysto, and we don't even like it as much as the angular Samsung SGH-A737, a step-down slider also on AT&T. We like the giant 4-way navigation button in the center of the phone, but the giant AT&T logo emblazoned within is kind of ostentatious. Our review unit was painted red, and we love the deep, sanguine color with metallic highlights. Still, we long for the days when Samsung fought against millimeters to produce svelte, sharp sliders.
The interface design is pure AT&T, a replica of every other basic AT&T feature phone. It's a grid-based menu of icons, and these are starting to look dull and dated. Plus, most icons simply lead to more menus. AT&T Music leads to a music menu, not directly to the music player. Even AT&T GPS leads to a menu, and not the AT&T Navigator. The phone could use a few more dedicated buttons. The "MP3" button jumps to the music menu, when it should jump right into the music. And instead of a camera button, there is a pop-up application switcher menu, and you have to dig to activate the camera. Like the boxy shell, the buttons and interface design just seem clunky, a step backwards.
Calling - Good
Calls made on the Samsung SGH-A777 sounded pretty good. The phone isn't brimming with calling features, but our calls sounded clean and clear. Callers reported our voice sounded good, if a bit muffled at times. Reception was solid. We got about 4-5 bars of service, and this phone got reception as good as any AT&T phone we were testing at the same time. Battery life was a serious disappointment. For some reason, Samsung bundles this phone with a smaller battery than the Samsung SGH-A737, even though the newer phone has GPS. While we got more than 4 hours on the A737, the A777 died about 15 minutes shy of that goal. That means we might not be able to a day's worth of calls on this phone without charging it.
Otherwise, the address book had enough fields, but lacked synchronization or backup options. Typing all our contacts on this phone's keypad would not be our idea of fun. Conference calling was easy enough, but required just a bit of menu drilling to connect the 3-way call. The speakerphone was adequate, and easy to access during a call. Unfortunately, the phone seems to lack voice recognition, so voice dialing was impossible.
Messaging - Good
The Samsung SGH-A777 gets the basic AT&T package for messaging options. There is a basic SMS app for text messaging, as well as MMS for multimedia. For instant messaging, the phone uses an aging client to access AIM, Yahoo and MSN. For e-mail, there is a limited selection of about 10 providers, but these didn't include Gmail (or Exchange), so we were out of luck. There isn't any dedicated messaging key to jump right into a new text message, so you'll have to create a shortcut for quick access.
The keypad on the Samsung SGH-A777 is pretty bad, even for a slider phone. It isn't just flat; flat we can live with. The keys are textured with a groove pattern that actually makes them more difficult to feel without looking. The keys seemed to blend together under our fingertips, and we made plenty of mistakes, even dialing simple phone numbers.
Multimedia - Good
The Samsung SGH-A777, as you might expect by now, gets the standard suite of AT&T multimedia apps, with no frills or adjustments thrown in. The basic music player is just that: basic. It handled our MP3 files, though our album artwork didn't show up in the player window. Samsung doesn't include a 3.5mm headphone jack, so we paired the phone with our stereo Bluetooth speakers instead. There are streaming options from XM radio, but the extra monthly cost make these prohibitively unappealing.
For video, the phone gets AT&T's Cellular Video clips. The phone uses AT&T's fastest available network, so clips loaded quickly and didn't have much trouble during playback. However, video looked splotchy and pixilated, and we have never been thrilled with the programming options on the carriers' streaming service.
GPS Navigation - Very good
Considering GPS is this phone's main advantage over the Samsung SGH-A737, aside from the $80 price premium at launch, we were pleased to find great GPS performance. The phone found us very quickly in our original search, only a minute or two to first fix. Then, emerging from tunnels or other trouble spots took the phone much less than a minute to regain our fix. Adjusting our route for errors and traffic also didn't take long. We wish there were more views and options available in AT&T's Navigator software, but the Samsung SGH-A777 handled the turn-by-turn navigation app nicely, perhaps justifying the upgrade from its little sibling.
Camera - Mediocre
A 1.3-megapixel camera is starting to seem smaller and smaller these days, but even at this size the images from the Samsung SGH-A777 had plenty of visual problems. Details were fuzzy, and the photos lacked a sharp focus anywhere. The camera seems to favor deep blues, as lakes and the blue sky had plenty of punch. But it couldn't deliver on our panorama attempts, and our high-detail shots were disappointing.
Lake Hopatcong
The blue here looks rich and saturated. Unfortunately, we've lost all detail in the tree branches in the foreground or in the forest in the back.
Panorama
The Samsung SGH-A777 can take panorama shots up to 6 frames wide, which would be nice if the stitching were much better. As it is, there are some cool aspects to this shot, but its ultimately a failure as a stitched panorama.
Self Portrait
Our self-portrait came out blurry with plenty of noise. Those red pillows behind us are exloding, too, while the white wall reflects the color.
Figurine Close-up
We couldn't get closer than this, and even from this distance there is no detail either in the painted figurine or the small rock. We can't even read the date on the quarter.
eBay Shot
Here, the explosive colors seem muted, almost brown. Details are mostly gone, like the fine scratches on the card, or the asst. numbers up top.
Web browsing - Mediocre
The Web browser on the Samsung SGH-A777 was able to churn through a few complicated pages, but things were usually pixilated or blurry in the end. Our own home page looked okay in terms of layout, but graphics and our page masthead were blocky. Even worse, navigating pages was very, very slow, and there was no way to speed up the crawling scroll. The phone is very quick, using AT&T's 3.6Mbps HSDPA network, and pages loaded in seconds. Still, the end result was adequate, but nothing worth recommending the device over.
Price and availability
The Samsung SGH-A777 is available now from AT&T for $80 with a contract agreement.
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