The m520 is a slim, attractive slider that packs a whole lot of features for a budget price. Exactly how much bang do we get for our buck?
Review summary of the Samsung SPH-M520:
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 The m520 is a functional little slider that has almost every feature one can expect to find in a new cell phone. There are issues with almost all of them however, following the current template for multimedia phones as jacks-of-all-trades but masters of none. We absolutely loved Sprint's music store, which was easy to search and had great selection, but even the music feature was hindered by the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, including a 2.5mm dongle that didn't work with our adapter. We suppose this phone would be most useful to someone who buys music online and uses a bluetooth headset, but its budget price makes it a solid buy regardless. Release: February 2008. Price: $20.
Pros: Attractive, slim profile, great online music store
Cons: Awkward menus, 2.5mm headphone dongle, mediocre IM support
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Full Samsung SPH-M520 Review:
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Design - Very Good
The m520 is a light, slim slider. The finish on the case is aesthetically pleasing, although the shine clashes somewhat with the matte finish on the back, if only because the colors themselves are so similar. The slide mechanism provides a slim profile, and it fits easily into almost any shirt or pants pocket.
A little nub assists in opening and closing the phone, but considering its proximity to the top button of the D-pad, it is more helpful in closing than opening. The screen seems to take up a lot less real estate than it could, although we think this could be due to the track for the sliding mechanism on the back of the phone.
The topmost menu uses the same squiggly "lines of light" theme we recognized from Sprints commercials, and the submenus are all pretty standard and somewhat boring. We liked that Samsung allowed for some customization with the My Favorites menu, but we still thought the overall menu structure was clumsy.
Calling - Very Good
The microphone picked up our voice loud and clear, and background noise was scattered and muffled. We're not sure a dedicated speakerphone button was necessary, but we won't complain. Voice dialing worked extremely well; we activated it by holding down the Call button, and after saying “Call Christopher” only once, we were connecting in less than a second.
Pairing our Bluetooth headset required some menu digging, but was problem-free, and while we experienced a little radio static, we didn’t lose the signal. We also liked the live search in the contact menu, and that contacts were a top-level menu option.
Messaging - Good
We didn’t like how SMS, one of the most frequently used features on any phone, was buried in multiple menu levels. Samsung offers a “My Favorites” menu that can be customized, but this should be standard on the top menu screen. MMS worked well, sending pictures quickly and receiving them with no issues, even from other service providers.
The purchased AIM program is awkward and reliant upon submenus for basic functions like “send.” It also didn’t load our buddy list, rather only those numbers saved in the “Mobile” folder on our account. After exiting the program, we received an SMS message with a link back to the program. This was interesting, until we kept receiving the messages after signing off AIM on our phone.
Music - Very Good
The included music player had simple playback controls, including shuffle and repeat options. We loved Sprint’s music store, which was extremely easy to search and had an impressive library. The pop charts were well-represented with the likes of Soulja Boy "Tell’em" and Hannah Montana, but we were impressed to find Yeasayer’s “All Hour Symbols” and multiple records from defunct bands like Heatmiser. We also liked that the songs had album art attached and displayed it during playback.
Video - Good
The videos on SprintTV came through with minimal buffering, and we experienced little to no choppiness with video playback. However, for the programming on FOX Sports Live, tailored specifically for mobile phones, videos are replaced with a cheesy Ed Burns effect slideshow of sorts. We’re sure this helps with bandwidth issues, but it’s still cheesy. There are no video playback controls, only start and stop.
Camera - Mediocre
Camera quality is poor, as we've come to expect, with pictures unable to deal with improperly balanced light sources and overall sub-par clarity. Brightness and white balance were adjustable, and we assumed that the feature called “Night Shot” was supposed to help take better pictures at night, which it did not. We also had some trouble sending photos to our computer using Bluetooth; the phone did not pair reliably with our Dell Laptops.
Web - Good
It took six separate attempts to load our homepage, and despite the plain-text look (backgrounds and fonts did not load) the links and images were all functional. The NYTimes homepage (optimized for WAP browsers) looked much better and loaded quickly.
GPS - Good
The included Sprint Navigation by Telenav is a decent piece of software, although somewhere in the communication between the device and the software there are a few holes. The phone had trouble pinpointing our location, telling us we were traveling south on Broadway, when we were in fact on 3rd Avenue. When we turned down the wrong street, the unit took a while to correct itself and reroute us. We suppose it could be useful for general direction, but it's not going to replace the GPS in your car.
Odds and ends
In addition to the charger, Sprint includes only a dongle that plugs into the power port to convert it to a 2.5mm headphone jack. We have no idea why they chose not to make the adapter 3.5mm so that we could use regular headphones, but they didn't.
Price and availability
The Samsung SPH-M520 is available from Sprint for $100 with a contract. An online discount of $80 is available.
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