“Samsung M360 (Sprint)” |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2011 10:14 AM PST
In an age of powerful smart devices, many consumers still want cell phones that are "just phones." A perfectly fine example is the Samsung M360 ($19.99-209.99), a modest flip phone that feels well-built and sounds good on voice calls. It's far from the most exciting device we've tested. But it's a decent choice for anyone looking for a cheap cell phone on Sprint's main network. Sometimes, that's all a person needs. Design and Call Quality The M360 is a dual-band EV-DO Rev 0 (850/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi. Voice quality was full and warm in the earpiece, and not as trebly as some other Sprint phones I've tested. The M360 also went deafeningly loud. Caller said I sounded crystal clear, and reception was also good. Calls sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99, 4 stars) Bluetooth headset. Voice dialing worked perfectly over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone was surprisingly loud, and good enough to use outdoors. Battery life was also good at 5 hours and 31 minutes of talk time. Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions Sprint Family Locator support makes this a good phone for kids or their parents, with Safety Check geo-fencing and secure texting features. The phone also supports Sprint's parental controls, which lets you restrict incoming and outgoing calls, and limit access to some of the phone's features. There's no actual GPS navigation, though. As is obvious from the specs, this isn't much of a multimedia phone, either. There's no music player, video player, or camcorder. The 1.3-megapixel camera lacks an LED flash and auto-focus capability. That said, test photos looked fine both indoors and out, with reasonably balanced color and lighting, although they could have been sharper. There's no memory card slot; the only way to get photos off the phone is to send them over the air. There is just 1.5MB of free internal memory, which is good for only 46 photos at the default resolution. Despite the M360's sparse feature set, it's a fine phone for anyone who wants a budget-priced device on Sprint. I like this phone better than the Sanyo Vero (Free, 2.5 stars) which has no 3G and steps down to a monochrome LCD; the M360 is worth the extra 20 bucks up front. The Samsung Seek SPH-M350 ($19.99, 3 stars) loses the hardware numeric keypad in favor of a touch screen, but it gives you a real music player and a memory card slot—two very useful features to have. Finally, the LG Rumor Touch (Free, 4 stars) is our current Editors' Choice, and a much more powerful option that includes a QWERTY keyboard, powerful music and video players, and social networking compatibility. You'll need to pay extra monthly data fees to access some of those features, though. Benchmarks Compare the Samsung M360 to other similar cell phones. More Cell Phone reviews: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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