Samsung Eternity a867 Phone, Black
Posted by adminAug 21
- Black-and-chrome multimedia phone with large, vivid 3.2-inch touchscreen, haptic feedback, and intuitive TouchWiz interface
- 3G-enabled phone compatible with AT&T Navigator GPS turn-by-turn directions, AT&T Mobile Music, Video Share service, and Mobile TV
- 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder, Bluetooth stereo music, MicroSD expansion to 8 GB, access to personal email and instant messaging
- Up to 5 hours of talk time, up to 240 hours (10 days) of standby time
- What’s in the Box: handset, battery, charger, user manual
Amazon.com Product Description
The multimedia-rich Samsung Eternity for AT&T provides one-touch access to AT&T Mobile TV and a full-touch QWERTY keypad access via its large, vivid 3.2-inch touchscreen. With AT&T’s Mobile TV offering, you can watch TV-quality programming from Comedy Central, ESPN, Fox, NBC, and more. This quad-band GSM phone also runs on AT&T’s dual-band HSDPA/UMTS high-speed 3G network, making it easy to download music purchased from AT&T Mobile Music. This GPS-enabled… More >>
Samsung Eternity a867 Phone, Black
Was looking to replace my current phone. Already have a work phone (BB) for email/texting. Was looking for a personal phone with good reception so I could close down my land line. Also wanted a phone with good form factor and ability to access the net w/good resolution viewing the pages. Initially tried an unlocked Nokia n78….great reception (Nokia has the best), loved in particuolar that it has an FM transmitter. The browser was fast and the screen nice but did not like that you have to go into the menu to rotate the screen and zoom. Aso, the keyborad buttons are very tricky. So….next went and bought an iPhone, which I thought an amazing gadget. Loaded with features. I was stunned however to find that the phone reception was erratic and often poor (many dropped and missed calls). Found out that this is a common problem with the 2nd gen iPhone (do a web search on “iPhone reception problems..). Also thought the iPhone a tad too large (especially as I aso frequently need to carry a work BB) and the camera mediocre.
Bought the Eternity two days ago. Fantastic form factor and great price for the features. Love how it has behaved so far as I put it through the various tests. Like the touch interface, menu interface and the auto rotation screen. Keyboard is nice, best once rotating the screen the long way. Call quality is as good as the iPhone but not as good as the Nokia. Reception is MUCH better than the iPhone (which at times was borderline defective) but not as good as Nokia. Unlike the iPhone, you can add external memory (micro SD). Apple charges 199 for an 8G and 299 for a 16G iPhone….$100 for 8G iPhone memory upgrade vs. $20 for an 8G card. Expect iPhone upgrades in the future of 24G, 32G etc for $100 or more a pop LOL. You do the math.
For web access through ATT, I pay $15/m for the Eternity and would have paid $30/m if I kept the iPhone (it is more data intensive). Overall, I love this phone so far….better price, better monthly payment, great form factor, fast browser, nice mp3 interface with quick access to preset equilizer settings. The only other phones on my radar screen are the BB flip, HTC Touch Diamond and the Nokia n85…..but this one seems a keeper, especially given the price. If I get bored or something new comes out that is a must have, I’ll just buy it (will need to be an unlocked phone unless it’s upgrade time) as I’m only down $100 with this phone ($50 if through Amazon). Happy shopping.
Pros:
Form factor (size/shape)
Price (phone and web plan)
Can use MicroSD cards
3.5mm headphone jack
accelometer
bright nice rez screen
bluetooth, 3mp camera, easy access preset equalizer
great battery life
GPS and ATT TV capable (if you are into either feature)
Cons:
Does not come with USB cable for computer hookup
Does not have iPhone-like zoom feature
Wish it had Nokia-like reception
Dec. 2 2008 update:
Returned the phone. Found that I was only getting 1-2 bars at home and occasionally missing calls. In contrast, my old phone (Sony Ericcson 810i) and my wife’s Blackberry 8300 were getting 4-5 bars (all phones on the ATT network). Took a trip to VT…had no reception in one town while my wife had 2-3 bars on her Blackberry. Both the Blackberry and Samsung Eternity are 3G. Overall, an amazing gadget but lacking with respect to the feature I wanted most….A PHONE I COULD DEPEND ON FOR MAKING/RECEIVING CALLS.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a really neat little device; the QWERTY keyboard is really good and it makes an excellent messaging device, but the lack of voice dial and speed dial *greatly* diminish the usefulness of this device as a phone. The old “phonebook index + #” trick is pretty useless since it only works with numbers stored on your SIM, and there’s no way to know which number is at what index. On top of that, if you were to store your numbers on your SIM so you can use the really crude “speed dialing” others have alluded too, it doesn’t store your entries as it does in the phone’s memory, so the messaging features don’t integrate well. What was Samsung thinking???? (My guess is that Samsung was asked by AT&T to specifically disable voice and speed dial functions to force customers to use AT&T fee-based voicedial feature.)
As it stands, this phone is downright DANGEROUS to use in the car. Sure you can use a bluetooth handsfree kit to receive calls, but to initiate a call you have to fumble through multiple menu selections to find the number you want, then initiate the call manually. While the device may have some neat new functions previously not available in non-smartphones, as a phone, it’s just very cumbersome.
Other dislikes include:
- The nifty little widget bar can’t be customized beyond disabling the standard widgets.
- No way to quick dial. This kinda falls in the “no speed or voice dial” complaint. There’s simply too many steps to initiate a call. It’s a real PAIN! My 2-year old Razor is light years ahead of this thing in terms of PHONE useability.
- I don’t like the way it automatically locks the touch screen once a call is established. Makes more enabling the speakerphone more cumbersome.
On the plus side, the touchscreen implementation is very good. The QWERTY keyboard is really nice, and is the only reason I’m even keeping this phone. I just hate messaging using the standard phone keypad that much. Battery life is good, call quality is good, the Music Player works good. All that’s needed to make this a top-notch phone is for Samsung to implement the basic functions that have been available for years on just about every phone out there.
Rating: 3 / 5
I just recently purchased the Eternity to replace a Sony Ericsson W580i (great phone, not without annoyances though) and so far this has been a very good phone! I was almost going to take it back because it doesn’t have some features I wanted, I was going to purchase a Fuze in its place at a couple of hundred bucks more. Here’s why –
I wanted a handset that had 802.11b/g, not a deal breaker since I have a Nokia N800 if I want portable web surfing and e-mail, but it would be nice to have a single device that covers that purpose, the Eternity clearly doesn’t have Wifi, but it is a 3G capable device and because it’s a ” dumb ” phone, you can stay on AT&T’s 15 dollar unlimited MediaNet plan. Which leads me to the other reason why I chose to keep it.
I wanted a handset that could at least let me view MSOffice docs and spreadsheets, PDF’s and was capable of being a media device for short trips and times when I don’t feel like carrying a seperate device. I was pleasantly surprised to see it has an unadvertised feature. You can view MSOffice docs and PDF’s through Access (think NetFront Browser) and they can be viewed landscape or vertical, zoomed, etc… Very nice surprise feature! Makes this ” dumb ” phone a little better than the iPhone, especially when you factor in the 3.5mm headset jack, the 8gb MicroSDHC and the countless free J2ME apps like Gmail, GoogleMaps, and Opera Mini that you can install for free. Plus, the accelerometer works well, the haptic feedback is great, although the onscreen keyboard can be tricky at times. Overall, there is very little to dislike about this handset. I wish it had a flash on the camera, which is stellar in decent lighting and has some cool features, like a six frame panorama stitch. I also some of the Java apps used the accelerometer. The widgets are a nice touch and I personally like the uncluttered look of the home screen. If you want a solid iPhone alternative, look no further, or just looking for a killer non WinMo phone that does just about everything a normal, non business-centric person would need, check this one out!
Rating: 5 / 5
A phone PACKED with FEATURES.
The Samsung Eternity to me is considered a high end PDA/Smart phone without the ability to edit office documents. The best thing about this phone is that it doesn’t have Window Mobile 6.1. Every time I see the window MS logo on a cell phone I just want to run for the hills. Anyways, thank goodness this is strictly Samsung. This brand is known for churning out exquisite top notch phones.
This phone is a touch screen based phone with only 3 keys on the bottom. You get a gorgeous 3 inch screen with 262K Colors where the vibrant colors just really POP. You get access to emails, 3G, Web Browser, IM, Text, Multimedia Messaging, etc. The only thing is I felt the web browser was limited. You have a 3 inch screen and Samsung should really take advantage of it and have it take up the entire screen. If you’re on YouTube you get to watch the videos but even when in full screen mode it doesn’t take up the whole screen. Of course nothing beats the iPhone’s Safari Browser. I must admit the Google Android G1 phone on T-Mobile comes pretty close to being a flawless browser. Despite the touch screen I feel it didn’t flow as fluid as the G1 and iPhone did but great nonetheless. I’ve only had the phone for 1 day. I will test it out more and revise my review. I think the haptic feedback makes me feel the phone isn’t operating as responsive as it should because I really don’t need the device to vibrant whenever I confirm a selection.
There’s a 3.0 megapixel camera (About Time!) with no built in FLASH. Seriously, its about time its above a 2.0. I can deal with the no FLASH since its comes with 3.0. The camera also functions as a camcorder with 1 hour built in recording time & above 1 hour with additional micro SD card. The device can accept up to 16GB on the micro SD. The back of the phone literally looks like a digital camera.
Pros:
Sleek sexy design
Camera/camcorder (Really should be 6.0 megapixel by now but atleast its above 2.0)
Built in Messaging Clients (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Etc)
Access to Emails
Qwerty Keyboard
MP3 Players
Samsung Menu
GPS
Micro SD (Up to 16GB)
Touch screen
Cons:
Only 3.0 Megapixel Camera/Camcorder (Really should be 6.0 by now)
Battery is really thin so carry an extra charger with you
AT&T is really cheap with the accessories (Only device & charger included)
Wish a USB Charger was included
P.S. Speed Dial – I have seen a few reviews complaining about the lack of a speed dial, and than someone returns the phone because there is no speed dial, but that is not true. Speed dial does exist and its easy to use. Example: If you save your friend Amy’s phone number and she is the 3rd name you enter in your phone’s address book. All you have to do next time to find her without scrolling through the address book is hit 3 than the # sign on your phone and her name will pop up and than you just call. So if you save your friend, JAMES, and he is added as the 4th entry in your book. Than next time you type in 4#, his name will appear without scrolling.
So instead of dialing the whole number or scrolling through all the names in your address, you can simply hit the numeric sequence you saved their entry in and your all set. The numeric entry coincides with the speed dial number.
Rating: 4 / 5
Wow, what can I say, this is a fantastic phone. Don’t believe other reviewers if they convince you not to buy. Everyone I show this phone to wants to get one.
Pros:
The camera is just like using a regular point and shoot camera, only much much better than any p&s camera I have ever owned – aside from no flash. Which, I guess if you are a clubber or are always taking pictures in the dark then I can understand. But if you are a regular person like me, taking random pictures at random times, this phone is perfect for those occasions.
The video recorder is one of the best if not the best on the market – no video recording on the 3g iphone!
The phone comes with an automatic slideshow for your pictures, and looking at pictures is very natural and just like the iphone.
You can put lots of memory in for cheap with the mini SD card. It says I can take 1000 pictures with my 8gb card that cost me $10. USB cables are a couple bucks, so don’t worry about that – you’re getting this phone for nothing anyway.
Tools it comes with are great – converters, calculator (full scientific calculator with trig and inverse trig functions – no graphing though), memos (with handwriting support!), voice memos, full calendar, etc.
Web browsing is great, and with Opera Mini, I can do just about everything I want to.
Lots of apps and games are out there since this phone supports J2ME. You won’t find all of the slick iphone apps, but how often are you really going to level your shelf – and if you do then go get your regular level, it will probably work better anyway. There are a lot of good full touch screen games available.
The TV viewer it comes with is nice, but I didn’t subscribe because I can’t imagine when I would need to watch TV for any length of time on my phone. The picture on the preview channel is great though.
For free radio check out moodio.fm through the web browser if you want to listen to your favorite online radio station broadcasts, that service is free but you will want the unlimited data plan.
Haptic feedback is nice. When you press buttons on the phone, it buzzes a bit to make it feel like you are pressing something. Same when you use the volume buttons to scroll, it feels very natural and sometimes I just scroll up and down because it feels so cool, like you are flipping through the entries. I have never felt anything like it.
Reception is good and is better than my old Samsung Sync. I could not get reception in my garage with my old phone and the Eternity works well.
Touchwiz UI is almost kind of useless, except for the ability to position the things you use where ever you want on the screen. It would be nice if the UI let you put other things on the UI bar, but supposedly that is coming soon. What is there can be removed if you find you’re not using it – like the TV icon etc.
(Minor) Gripes:
You can’t attach pics to emails in the email app, but if you have a messaging plan you can email pictures to yourself or others directly from the main message area instead of email.
Email app for hotmail only goes back so far into your inbox. You can access your full inbox through the web browser though, but be aware that Microsoft does detect that you’re using a mobile browser (whether you use the built in one or Opera Mini) and takes away things like message attachments, which I really wish was available, but that is not this phone’s fault.
Phone seems to go into screen lock mode pretty quickly. Not a huge deal. Also, you have to press a button to unlock the phone rather than the slider bar like on the iphone. This could be a plus or a minus though depending on how you look at it. I have only had one time where the phone wasn’t locked and was doing random things in my pocket. I may not have found the feature that lets you change how quickly the phone locks.
GPS is locked, so you have to pay for GPS service. Not too expensive though if you already have a full data plan then its only an extra $5 a month. I consider that reasonable, although I would prefer that if I’m paying the $5 a month (or $10 w/no data plan) that it would allow Google maps to use the GPS as well. Instead Google Maps figures out your approximate location (automatically) based on the cell tower the phone is using. I was impressed enough with that but GPS would be better. The GPS app that it uses does have voice POI lookup, which is a nice feature. The GPS app also gives turn by turn, voiced with street names, which is better than Google’s driving directions feature I’ve seen on my friends iphone.
No speed dial – but this supposedly is coming with a future update of the phone. They have a favorites section that would be fine to use instead of the speed dial, but getting to it takes a couple extra clicks and it would be much better if either favorites were listed first when you hit “contacts” or if speed dial worked. There are some work arounds though, so it is not a huge problem. (Add * before the first name of your contact and it will pop to the top of the contacts list so you’ll see it immediately when you hit contacts.)
No Flash player – but I can’t really think of much I would want to watch except for Youtube, which this phone does support through the regular web browser. I suppose it would be nice to view hulu, fancast etc.
Bottom Line:
If you need to access your outlook email for work, or if you need a flash on the camera, this may not be the phone for you. But if you are a regular person with a regular email account (hotmail, yahoo, google, aol, etc) then this phone will probably do everything you would want and then some. This is like walking around with the internet, a nice little point & shoot camera, camcorder and a GPS all in one. The few little concerns I have are not that big of a deal, and when you consider that this phone only costs you 1 cent plus activation fees you’re going to pay with any phone, this is a steal. If you are considering this or the iphone, buy this one unless there is some extremely good reason why you have to have the iphone instead.
Rating: 4 / 5