Samsung Impression Review

For those of you who really liked the Samsung Eternity but pined for a hardware QWERTY keyboard, here's Samsung's solution: the Impression SGH-A877. The Impression features the same responsive touch screen and TouchWiz UI as the Eternity but ups the ante with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a stunning AMOLED display.

The Impression matches the Eternity's features minus the mobile digital TV tuner (Qualcomm MediaFLO broadcast TV). It has 3G HSDPA on AT&T's bands and is quad band GSM. It has Bluetooth with a full set of profiles including A2DP stereo, a GPS with AT&T Navigator, 3 megapixel camera, a music player, CV streaming media player and a large 3.2" resistive touch screen. Sorry, it does not have WiFi, which is mostly found on smartphones rather than feature phones.

The Samsung Impression is a powerful and fun feature phone. Its strong suit is multimedia thanks to the fantastic 3.2" AMOLED display, excellent CV streaming video playback and local video playback. The web browser, as with the Eternity, is one of the best feature phone browsers on the market for full HTML site support and the phone has good messaging and IM support, though email support is limited. The keyboard is large, roomy and easy to type on even if you have large hands-- and we're thrilled with the on-screen keyboards for those times one just needs to enter a few words or enter text one-handed. The only drawback? This is a large and heavy phone.

Pro: Fantastic looking, large touch screen that's responsive. Excellent keyboard, strong video playback performance, good GPS. TouchWiz is fun to use and very easy to learn. Samsung's latest widgets make the phone easier to use. Very good HTML web browser.

Con: Large and heavy phone by feature phone standards. Reception is middle of the road. Limited email accounts supported. No 3.5mm jack.

Specs:

Display: 262,000 color resistive AMOLED touch screen with haptic feedback. Screen size diagonally: 3.2". Resolution: 240 x 400, supports both portrait and landscape modes via accelerometer.

Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1000 mA. Claimed talk time: up to 3 hours. Claimed standby: up to 10.4 days.

Performance: Approx. 200 megs internal memory. Address book can hold up to 1,000 records.

Size: 4.48 x 2.28 x 0.61 inches. Weight: 5.3 ounces.

Phone: GSM quad band world phone 850/900/1800/1900MHz. 3G HSDPA 3.6Mbps on the 850/1900MHz bands.

Camera: 3.0 MP with self-portrait mirror but no flash. 3X digital zoom. Can shoot still photos and video with audio.

Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Has voice recorder and music player that supports MP3, AAC, WMA (including protected WMA), WAV and Real formats.

Networking: Integrated Bluetooth, profiles include headset, handsfree, A2DP stereo with AVRC, serial port, FTP, DUN, basic printing, and Obex.

Software: Netfront 3.5 web browser, Java-based email client, SMS/MMS messaging, Instant Messaging (AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo), calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, voice recorder, music player, video player, world clock, stopwatch, timer, Netfront MS Office and PDF document viewer, file manager, Yellow Pages, AT&T Navigator, alarm clock, calculator and unit converter. Subscription services and pay-for apps: Music ID, XM Radio, MobiVJ, My-Cast Weather, WikiMobile and Where.

Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot