In our Samsung Sway review, we get a grip on this shiny metal slider and wonder if Verizon Wireless can do better.
Review summary of the Samsung Sway:
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 The Samsung Sway continues Samsung's newest tradition of stealing phone designs from LG. The phone looks decidedly like the LG Shine, especially the slider version on AT&T. If you like the look of this phone, more power to you, because its shiny, brushed metal look and thin shell are this phone's upside. What really disappointed us, however, was an inefficient menu structure and less than great call quality. Furthermore, the phone didn't allow us to multi-task at all, denying us access to for instance text messaging while listening to music. The camera and Verizon Wireless' GPS navigation showed some signs of decent performance at advanced tasks, but with the lack of high-speed networking there are no other multimedia features of significance to be found, other than a mobile browser. Release: October 2008. Price: $70.
Pros: Nice design. Slim, tight slider shell. Camera was better than we expected.
Cons: Call quality suffered. Inefficient menu structure.
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Full review of the Samsung Sway:
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Design - Good
The Samsung Sway is a shiny metal phone with a nice mix of brushed metal and ribbed textures all around. The phone's hardware design was easily our favorite aspect of the device, so hold on because it's downhill from there. Before the fall, though, we'd like to stop and admire the tight build we've liked on almost every Samsung slider phone. Nobody builds a slider like Samsung, and in this respect the Samsung Sway doesn't disappoint.
It doesn't disappoint, that is, until you open up the phone and start to use it. What initially striked us as a fancy new interface for Verizon Wireless, ends in an inefficiently organized menu structure. That said, we'll give Samsung kudos for adding some cool, animated icons.
Calling - Good
Calls on the Samsung Sway sounded okay, but had some consistent static in the background on all our calls. Listeners reported a vaguely metallic sound to our voices, though it wasn't a significant problem. Reception was more of a concern, as we never got above 3 bars in our lower Manhattan office. The phone uses 1xRTT networking, instead of the higher-quality EV-DO, but we're not sure how this affects call quality. Battery didn't see much improvement with the slower network, as we only managed about 4.5 hours of talk time, which is still a bit better than what Verizon Wireless promises.
The address book on the Samsung Sway was very basic, with a few fields for phone numbers, e-mail and grouping contacts together. Don't expect any synchronization options or advanced contact list features. For other calling features, Samsung strangely hides the speaker-independent voice recognition under the "0" key, which is an odd placement, but the voice dialing app worked every time in our tests, so no complaint there.
Messaging - Good
For messaging, the Samsung Sway gets the most basic set of Verizon Wireless messaging tools. SMS and MMS messaging worked fine with the phone's T9 input option. IM and e-mail fans will be disappointed, however, as these clients are woefully out of date. For IM, AOL, Yahoo and MSN services are supported, but it lacks an e-mail client. The keypad on the Samsung Sway was a bit flat, but plenty wide, so typing wasn't a problem.
Multimedia - Mediocre
The Samsung Sway proved to be a pretty basic phone when it came to multimedia. It doesn't include the standard V Cast Music Store and streaming options, but relies on one of those bare bones music players with only a minimum of options. What's worse, the Samsung Sway won't let you listen to music while performing other tasks, which is unacceptable for even a mid-range feature phone these days.
We were also disappointed by the Web browsing experience. Admittedly, the Samsung Sway doesn't come with high-speed data access, but the included Access Netfront browser didn't make it any better. If Verizon Wireless and Samsung are serious about moving away from the Openwave browser on CDMA handsets, Access' current solution is obviously not the way to go here. For a handset with 1xRTT connection, the Opera Mini's proxy solution would suit the Samsung Sway well, and it's even freeware.
GPS Navigation - Good
Once again, Verizon Wireless' fine VZ Navigator software swoops in to save the day. The phone had fine GPS reception, even finding us in our cubicle-dense office. VZ Navigator was a bit sluggish, thanks to the slower loading speeds for the 1xRTT connection, but did a fine job, nonetheless, and looked good doing it, too. We wouldn't recommend this device for its GPS navigation alone, but if you love the style and have to pick it up, and least you won't get lost on your way home from the store.
Camera - Good
The camera, too, surprised us with some nice quality. The Samsung Sway uses a 2-megapixel sensor, and while images were not fantastic, they were better than the images from most cameraphones we've seen recently. Colors looked bright, and though details suffered a bit from noise problems, overall we were fairly pleased.
Self portrait
The sun ran behind some clouds as we took this self portrait, which caused the too-cool blue colors, but otherwise this photo seemed fine.
Street scene
Once again, clouds cooled the atmosphere, but the camera kept up with most of the details. Fuzzy lines around edges hurt the image, but its otherwise okay.
Street scene
The Samsung Sway rendered this image cleanly, and we especially liked the accurate blues. Even if the lines in the metal structure are a bit hazy, it's still a well-lit, clean shot.
Price and availability
The Samsung Sway is available now from Verizon Wireless for $70.
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We'll start off 2009 with live coverage of Macworld and CES:
Macworld 2009, Jan 5 - 6
CES 2009, Jan 7 - 11
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