This wafer-thin clamshell features stereo Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera and access to Sprint's Music Store and TV services. Does the M610 belong in your pocket?
Review summary of the Samsung SPH-M610:
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 Samsung's wafer-thin SPH-M610 3G clamshell belies the notion that slim phones come with slim pickings in terms of features. The M610's impressively flat shell is only the tip of the iceberg, as the phone also offers great calling and contacts handling, as well as a wide range of multimedia options. We wish movie images were larger, but this seems to be par for the course for streaming video, and the selection of streaming audio and video options is impressive, with fast, hiccup-free load times. The phone's messaging options are among the best in its class, and even typing on the flat keypad is quite comfortable. We've seen plenty of phones try to get by on their good looks, but the M610 packs plenty of substance as well. Release: November 2006. Price: $130.
Pros: Incredibly thin design. Loads of messaging options. Streaming video and movie store works well. Stereo Bluetooth support.
Cons: Tiny video images. Ugly-duckling design. Lousy camera. No included USB cable. No Bluetooth stereo on streaming media.
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Full Samsung SPH-M610 Review:
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Design
While it currently holds the title of world's slimmest flip phone at 0.47 inches, the Samsung SPH-M610 is not especially attractive. The exterior front of the clamshell is a flat matte black slab, with a small blue OLED display at the top. Though the OLED is bright and clear, it has a utilitarian look, displaying simply the time and a row of status icons. Flip it open, and the interior looks like that of any other black clamshell -- that is, one run over by a steamroller to achieve perfect flatness, except for a gentle curve leading to the hinge and swiveling camera.
Calling - Very good
Calls on the M610 are remarkable not only for what you can hear, but also for what you don't hear. The phone has a great sound, with only a touch of static on the receiving end of our calls, but listeners reported no background noise or breathing from the phone. The phone supports speaker-independent voice dialing, but like the three-way calling option, this was buried low in the calling menus. Bluetooth works well, though, and we had fun with the video ringer option that lets you set videos for specific incoming calls. The dialing screen is marvelous; it looks like a game show scoreboard as each digit lights up the screen. The contact list offered plenty of options for this non-smartphone, and Sprint even offers a subscription-based wireless backup service to keep your contacts on their central server in case you lose or trade-in your phone.
Messaging - Very good
The Samsung SPH-M610 is a surprisingly competent messaging phone, helped by a plethora of useful options and features that make texting a real pleasure. T9 predictive text input on the SMS app is helped not only by a drop-down menu that offers word choices, but also a dictionary that remembers your previously used words. A zoom mode for incoming messages allows you to view about 80 characters (or half a full 160-character SMS message) at once in large type, or you can fit more than 160 characters in a very readable smaller font size. Both instant messaging and e-mail options for AIM, MSN and Yahoo come preloaded, and the phone even includes a "Chat and Dating" menu item that bookmarks Lavalife and Chat del Mundo services, among others. The menus in the messaging section are a bit confusing, but options abound. Typing on the flat keys was surprisingly easy, and while we had to watch where we were tapping, we hardly ever pressed the wrong key.
Camera - Mediocre
Overall, the M610 might be better off without a camera. Image quality was average for camera phones, which is to say not that good. Though you can send pictures via MMS, Bluetooth, or to a printer using PICT Bridge, there is no digital zoom and no editing functions, so you'll have to hope for the best. The camera snaps and stores pictures quickly, but our review unit included only a 64MB of microSD -- enough for plenty of 2-megapixel pictures, but cramped if you're also downloading music. The hinged camera design is useless, as there is no option to flip the image once you have flipped the camera, so self-portraits were a guessing game. There were a few fun options, including a fly's eye-like burst of 16 tiled shots, but the resolution was too low on this option to create a usable image.
Multimedia - Very good
The Samsung M610 is one of the first phones we've tested to come preloaded with Sprint's Movie Store app. There are almost 50 movies available, more like an interesting playlist than a real movie store. Movies download and stream quickly, though the actual image size is tiny. On screen text such as captions or credits is laughably tiny, and long-distance shots compress faces beyond recognition. Though streaming speeds over Sprint's 3G network were excellent, image size will have to be improved to make this a hot feature. The phone handled Web pages better than most flip phones, loading the complicated New York Times homepage without complaint. However, scrolling down long pages involved numerous clicks on the four-way button. Music is handled nicely through numerous streaming channels, including 20 channels of Sirius satellite radio. Sprint's music store downloaded tracks quickly from their admirably deep library of available tunes, but these tracks are not playable on your PC, and the included music player can only handle purchased files or MP3s, not WMA files. Finally, like all phones we have seen with A2DP support, the Samsung M610 cannot transfer audio from streaming channels to stereo Bluetooth headphones. This includes audio from video clips and even purchased movies. Because the phone uses the same port for charging and wired headphones, this means you may not finish a streaming movie before the battery runs out, unless you're listening on the phone's small speaker.
Odds and ends
The phone includes tethered modem support over Sprint's EV-DO network, though we couldn't test the speeds without an included USB cable. Also, the microSD slot is blocked by the battery so, lacking a USB cable, you'll find yourself taking the phone apart just to transfer pictures and music. The phone has an option to use Sprint's menus or retain Samsung's layered hierarchy design, but some menu functions, such as Bluetooth and music playing options, are duplicated and spread over multiple locations.
Related phones: Slim clamshells on Sprint
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When: November 2006 Worth: $40 - $305 Carrier: Sprint
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Read » Gallery »
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Price and availability
The Samsung SPH-M610 is available immediately from Sprint and retails for $330 or $180 after a two-year service agreement
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