Camera Phone Reviews

Samsung SPH-m620 "Upstage"

Samsung SPH-m620 Upstage Reviews

CNET reviews the Samsung Upstage SPH-M620 and writes, "The Upstage's 1.3-megapixel camera takes pictures in four resolutions, from 1,280x160 down to 176x220. Other camera features include three quality settings, brightness and white balance controls, a night mode, a self-timer, four color effects, 10 fun frames, a 5x zoom, and four shutter sounds as well as a silent mode. The camcorder records clips with sound and a selection of editing options similar to the still camera's. Clips meant for multimedia messages are capped at 30 seconds, or you can shoot for as long as the available memory will permit. For easy photo printing, the Upstage supports PictBridge technology for transferring images directly to a printer. In our tests, photo quality was good but not great. Colors were sharp and there was enough light, but unless we held the camera perfectly still, images tended to be a tad blurry."

LaptopMag reviews the Samsung Upstage and writes, "The 1.3-megapixel camera took sharp photos when we had a good amount of light, and Sprint TV looked decent on the 2.1-inch display, although with the usual artifacts. ... The UpStage is certainly a step forward for convergence, but because of its unique dual-face design, it can and should be held to a higher standard than your typical music phone. Unfortunately, although it certainly offers a lot of bang for the buck, the UpStage isn't as fast or as easy to use as Samsung's own MP3 players, nevermind Apple's icon."

PCMag has a review of the Sprint Upstage and writes, "On one side, it is indeed an easy-to-use phone. But flip it over (pressing a Flip button on the side) and you get a generic menu system, ill-designed for a phone with just a touchpad. Case in point: You're frequently popping down menus, which have shortcut numbers on them, but you can't press any of the number buttons to access the shortcuts. And every time you encounter something where you need to enter a letter or a number, you have to flip the phone over, enter the data on the keypad, and flip it back."

MobileTechReview reviews the Samsung Upstage and writes, "The Samsung UpStage has a 1.3 megapixel CMOS camera that can take both still images and video. When taking still photos, the camera software offers the usual set of features including self-portrait mode, self timer (5 seconds), brightness, white balance, color and quality settings. You can also turn off the shutter sound and you can use the photos taken with the camera as wallpapers, caller ID images or send as picture mail. You can also shoot photos in wide screen mode. The quality of photos taken with the phone is overall good for a 1.3 MP camera. The photos look quite sharp with good details and exposure. The colors are saturated and mostly correct. The biggest issue is white out. We are not surprised when 1.3mp camera phones white out yellows on a sunny day, but the yellow tulip shot in our sample was taken on a very cloudy day. You will also see pronounced white out on Sammy’s (the cat) belly in this indoor shot also on a cloudy day."

Infosync reviews the Samsung UpStage and writes, "The Samsung UpStage is such a unique flip, it seems almost more a design study than a retail phone. To be blunt, we did not appreciate the flip design. It did not make the music playing experience better, and it did not add to the ease and enjoyment of using the phone. Except for music features, which are controlled completely by the music side, every other feature was hurt either by the inconvenient flipping, the small screen, or the touch sensitive controls. If the design truly appeals to you, the phone has few major flaws besides this point. Music sounds good, and we like that Samsung includes a headphone adapter. Calls sound good, though not great, and other 3G features worked very well, including streaming movies on Sprint TV. Still, though we applaud a leap in design, we just don't think we're up for making the jump ourselves."

MobileBurn reviews the Samsung UpStage and writes, "The 1.3 megapixel camera on the UpStage works decently. It has a wide assortment of settings, including a rarely found manual white balance mode that lets you set the white balance based on a photograph taken of a white subject, such as a piece of paper. All of our sample photos were shot at the full 1.3 megapixel resolution and the highest quality setting. ... Yes, the UpStage has the basic ingredients to be a fantastic music phone. Said ingredients were just put together in the wrong way. It will probably suit a certain demographic of users, I'm sure. But for me, the UpStage is far too Mr. Hyde and not enough Dr. Jekyll. I have to give it a "Not Recommended" rating due to its myriad usability issues."

PCWorld reviews the Samsung UpStage and writes, "For video viewing, the UpStage's screen is small, and the device falls short as a serious device for messaging or e-mail due to its lack of a QWERTY keyboard. But if you're a music lover who isn't especially keen about video, e-mail, or messaging, Samsung's approach might upstage Apple's iPhone--and its price certainly does."

ComputerWorld reviews the Samsung UpStage and writes, "The phone side of the UpStage has a very thin, 1.4-in. color screen, a directional switch and the usual soft keys for navigating menus, all topping a conventional phone keypad. The phone felt small but solid in my hand; I found its keypad quite usable, and the sound quality of voice calls was generally good. The multimedia side of the device accommodates a 2.1-in. display and a four-way capacitive touchpad whose central, mechanical play button took some getting used to. The excellent documentation warns users not to try to swipe it in a circle (like an iPod control wheel), but the temptation is strong."

Paul Stamatiou has a review of the Sprint UpStage and writes, "To my surprise, the 1.3MP camera on the UpStage is outstanding (for a cell phone camera). It also takes video clips but with my experience those weren’t anything special. ... The music player on the UpStage takes 4-8 seconds to open up and then 2-3 seconds to load a song you want to play. It’s just not a viable music solution at the moment. Do you rely on your mobile phone for media playback? The usability of the UpStage is fundamentally flawed with the necessity to flip the phone. The quirky touch-sensitive, feedback-less pad also detracted from the phone’s ease of use. Considering the features, price and drawbacks I would give the Sprint UpStage a 7 out of 10."