I chose this phone hoping to carry one less device, by installing a 4GB Micro SD chip and using it as an mp3 player.
OVERALL RATING 2 stars (average of my phone and mp3 ratings)
A737 AS A PHONE: 3 stars.
As phones go, it is good enough. Other reviews complain about durability and battery life. So far mine is not broken, and I agree that the battery life is short. That will put me in the habit of leaving it connected to the computer overnight to recharge (using a USB cable). It's nice to be able to charge it from USB rather than carry an AC charger when traveling. Indoor use is better than my previous phone (Sony Ericsson T610), which did not work well in my home.
A useful feature that is not listed in the manual is "AIRPLANE" mode: it disables connection to the network, so that you can use the device on an airplane, for example to play mp3s or backup the phone's address book to your laptop.
I don't have the data plan. If you're going to pay the exhorbitant monthly fee for data, you should get a smart phone that makes better use of it.
Many features that require a data plan clog up the interface even when you don't have a data plan. For example, if you press the AT&T logo (select button), it pauses, says the connection failed. You then have to press OK, then Back, then confirm that you want to exit from the browser, 3 different button presses just to cancel the unavailable feature. This button is prominent on the phone and I had to learn NOT to press it from the main screen. I wish that the phone knew or learned it had no data plan, and kept data-dependent features from getting in the way.
On the other hand, there is a convenient configurable menu on another button from which you can select the features you actually use. That does soften my complaints in the previous paragraph - except for the AT&T logo button starting the browser.
A737 AS AN MP3 PLAYER: 1 star
As mp3 players go, it's nearly unusable.
I have a nice pair of standard earbuds (Koss "Plug") plugged in through an adapter, and they sound decent when the music is playing, but not as good as on my inexpensive but old Creative Zen Nano Plus mp3 player.
There is a LOUD *POP* at the beginning and end of each songs - that means two loud pops between tracks. It usually cuts off the first half-second of the song. Every time I push buttons to navigate the menus on the phone, there is the same LOUD *POP*. Between songs, there is a pause - sometimes short, sometimes long, and sometimes it is stuck until I push some buttons.
The volume control has only 5 steps over a wide range from too quiet to too loud. I have to use step 4 even though it is louder than I prefer, because step 3 is much too quiet.
I would like to play songs in a Music folder in the order they appear when sorted (my songs include a track number), as I can do with my Zen, so I can play an album in its intended order, or arbitrary mp3s in an order I have chosen. The only way to do that is to create a playlist for each folder. Without a playlist, you can play by Album and by Artist only.
I was hopeful when I saw that I could rate each song as it was playing, but this feature is useless. I played two hours worth of songs and rated each of them. The ratings are available on the phone, but I can't transfer the ratings back to my mp3 library with any of the three mp3 transfer mechanisms - Windows Media Player, the included Multimedia Manager (which has a column for displaying the rating but apparently no way to set it), or the mass storage USB setting using File Manager copy.
The battery life for playing music is poor: perhaps 3 hours, about the same as talking on the phone. If you play a lot of music on a flight, you won't be able to use the phone when you land.
MISC COMMENTS
The phone came with a charger and nothing else. I had to buy adapters to connect to USB (to charge, and to transfer data), and to use standard 2.5mm (1/8") stereo headphones. You will probably want to buy a lot of accessories to make the phone practical. They would be cheap except there is high postage, and no one seller has them all.
Contrary to some reviews on Amazon, I CAN use 4GB Micro SD chip in this phone; the Kingston chip works fine.
The 1 megapixel camera will sometimes come in handy when I don't have my real camera with me. The quality is on par for mobile phones, but not comparable to using a dedicated camera.
The AT&T plan I have includes SMS text messages. People can message me by emailing 10-digit-phone-number@txt.att.net, which is convenient, but I cannot reply to them without a data plan, except using SMS to their phone.
The alarm clock and address book applications are fine. The included PC software works, albeit with a non-intuitive interface and text and help file written by someone who does not know English very well. The Multimedia Manager takes much too long (average 2 minutes each) to transfer mp3 files to or from the phone.
The three included USB modes support the Samsung PC software, Windows Media Player protocol, and accessing the MicroSD (if present) like a USB memory stick. There is a choice to "ask me when connecting" - but it greys out all but the Samsung PC software, so this setting is useless.
SUMMARY
The phone is ok for basic phone features. With the exhorbitant price of data plans, if you're going to pay that much monthly, you should invest in a phone that can make better use of the data features. The crippling problems in the MP3 player render it nearly unusable for that purpose.
(6 customers reviews )Customers Rating=2.5 / 5.0
More Detail For
Samsung a737 Lime Green Phone AT T - Quad-band/3G slider phone in lime with brightly colorful screen and and stereo Bluetooth music streaming
- Fast music and video downloads and streams via AT&T Mobile Music and Cellular Video
- 1.3-megapixel camera/camcorder; MicroSD expansion; IM via AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo!
- Up to 3 hours of talk time, up to 250 hours (10+ days) of standby time
- Includes:
