Samsung FlipShot™ Black

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: We’re happy to report that call quality while receiving and placing calls using the Samsung FlipShot was quite impressive. We could hear pretty clearly in extremely loud situations. Callers said we were loud and clear. Additionally, speakerphone quality was impressive. There was no breakup on the line or the faraway sound that can occur when using a cell phone’s speakerphone. Finally, making the switch from speakerphone to handset mode was seamless when using the dedicated speaker button located on the right-hand side of the 4-way navi-key.

Audio playback: We found playback of songs to be decent through the cell phone’s speakers. Songs come through loud but slightly tinny, especially when played back at the loudest volume setting, and the cell phone lacks audio-centric user controls, so you can’t adjust the levels. If you don’t want to listen to music played through the cell phone speakers, you can plug in headphones that work with a 2.5mm headset jack (note that this is not the same as the jack found on portable music players) or pair the FlipShot with optional Bluetooth stereo headphones.

Ease of Use

Menu/phone book: This is one of the more straightforward menu interfaces you’ll find on a cell phone. We particularly like how easy it is to use the phone book. You can store 500 contacts in the phone book, each with five phone numbers and two e-mail addresses – sorry, there are no slots for address info, but you can add that information in the Note section. A new feature we’re starting to see on cell phones is found here: a dedicated contact for In Case of Emergency; you can program three contacts as well as your personal information. Our favorite feature is the Business Card Scan, which is buried under Picture and Video in the Get It Now menu. You can use this feature to take pictures of business cards, then automatically save them to Contacts. But if you want to find your phone number, you’ll need to dig through the menu system.

Camera/video: The real head turner on this cell phone is its 3-megapixel camera. Simply look at the lens on the back of the cell phone, and then you'll see that the screen can swivel and turn on itself, thus transforming into a huge LCD viewfinder; you'll also know that cell phones like the FlipShot put the "camera" in "camera phone." In fact, when you swivel the cell phone’s screen, the display automatically switches to horizontal mode, resembling the viewfinder of a digital camera. There’s also a plethora of digital camera features, including a self-timer, multishot, brightness, color effects (antique, emboss, negative normal, and black and white), autofocus, white balance, and metering (which measures the average amount of light in the picture you’re about to take and calculates the best exposure). On this cell phone, the flash is actually helpful for snapping pictures at night or indoors.

As expected, image quality was also good, providing plenty of detail. Once you’ve taken a picture, you can save it to the cell phone’s 56MB of available internal memory (that’s plenty of memory to store high-end photos, video, and even music) or to an expandable memory MicroSD card, or you can send the picture or print it using PictBridge (a way to send pictures from a camera directly to a compatible printer). While we were quite happy with the camera features, we didn’t like that the zoom button (the volume keys) does more than just zoom, nor does it zoom at all settings. If you have the camera set at a resolution of 1,280x960 or higher, pressing the zoom button will activate the video record feature. Thus, you can use the zoom only when taking pictures with a resolution of 1,024x768 or lower. We found recorded videos were a bit blurry when the cell phone is moved around quickly, though there was plenty of detail when it's focused on a specific scene. Additionally, sound quality was pretty good. Since the cell phone supports TV-out, you can play back videos from your cell phone on a TV with the right video cable.

Music: The Samsung FlipShot cell phone includes an MP3 player that does a decent job playing back music. Though this cell phone lacks the ability to adjust audio-centric controls such as bass and treble, it’s a snap to use basic playback functions. We particularly like that you can turn the MP3 player on without ever flipping open the FlipShot, though it’s not exactly intuitive; in this case, that’s a good thing. Hidden below the black exterior are translucent rewind, fast-forward, and play/pause buttons; they're the keys to turning on the player.

However, unless you’re downloading music from Verizon’s VCast service, getting music onto the cell phone is an entirely different story. You can’t use Bluetooth to transfer music from a PC to the Samsung cell phone. However, if you purchase an optional cable and software, you’ll be able to transfer WMA (Windows music file format) files to the cell phone using Windows Media Player. You can also purchase an optional MicroSD card to store more tunes from your PC, then slip it into the MicroSD card slot located just above the battery on back of the cell phone.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the cell phone with a Motorola Bluetooth H500 headset; however, we needed to consult the manual to set it up correctly. While call quality was perfectly acceptable using a Bluetooth headset, there was little else we could do with this feature.

Design

Look and feel: Let’s just say it: The sparkle-red Samsung FlipShot is flashy and easy on the eyes. It’s also available in black, but we think red is more appealing. Although its exterior screams fun, it’s also a little on the bulky and heavy side. If you want a slim phone, this is definitely not the handset for you. That said, this red cell phone won’t get lost in a purse or be hard to find at the bottom of a briefcase. The most notable design feature is the cell phone’s swiveling display. Many times with cell phones where you can turn the screen, it typically doesn’t fit comfortably against the ear. You turn your head and the screen turns too – making for a decidedly uncomfortable talking experience. That’s not the case here; when you don’t swivel the screen, it stays exactly in place.

One of the nicest features on this Samsung cell phone can probably be attributed to the integrated 3-megapixel camera. The screen is beautiful; letters and images are crisp, and both the external and internal displays are visible in most lighting conditions. We don’t even mind the rather large camera lens situated on the back of the cell phone (clearly, it’s there to make the back of the phone look like a camera). Unfortunately, it lacks a lens cover.

Keypad: Numbers are fairly large on the white-backlit keypad. Even the top portion of the keypad where many of the cell phone’s application launch buttons are located is downright spacious and quite usable. We were particularly impressed with the Samsung’s 4-way navi-key. It seems as if each time you press one of those buttons or even the OK key, you might inadvertently press a different key instead. We are particularly glad to see a dedicated speakerphone button.

Battery Life

For a cell phone with such an array of high-end features, the battery life is actually really good. Heavy cell phone users who make a ton of calls, snap a plethora of pictures, and send/receive loads of text messages daily will need to recharge it every four days. More moderate users will be able to make this Samsung cell phone last more than a week before needing a charge. If you are a light user, making just two to three 10-minute calls a day and texting infrequently, the Samsung FlipShot cell phone will last about 10 days. We should note that if you plan on using more power-intensive features such as the camera and music player or leave the Bluetooth activated, the battery will drain quicker.