Camera Phone Reviews

Samsung U740

Samsung U740 Reviews

CNET reviews the Samsung SCH-u740 and writes, "The 1.3-megapixel camera has a healthy array of settings, which include five different resolutions (1,280x960, 640x480, 320x240, 160x120, and a Picture ID setting), three quality settings (Fine, Normal, Economy), up to 4x zoom, color effects, white balance, light metering, flash, a self-timer of up to 10 seconds, auto save, preview mode, multishot, three "ready" sounds ("Say Cheese!", "Look here," and "1,2,3!") plus a silent option, and three shutter sounds also with a silent option. The camcorder has two recording modes: Clips meant for multimedia messages are limited to 15 seconds, but Normal mode lets you record for as long as the available memory permits. Of course, you always can use a microSD card for more space. The quality of the photos was acceptable; though the images appeared a little blurry, they weren't as pixilated as that of a VGA camera, and colors remained bright and bold. The video quality on the other hand was pretty shoddy, especially in low-light conditions."

Infosync has a review of the Samsung SCH-U740 and writes, "Pictures taken with the Samsung SCH-U740 were blurry and showed lots of pixel noise, though color wasn't as bad as pictures from other cameras we've used. The external screen can be used as a viewfinder for self-portraits, and though it crops most of the photo, we preferred it to the tiny mirror we're seeing on many camera phones. The U740 includes an LED flash, but no autofocus, and the list of camera options isn't impressive. There are some nice after-effects, including a sketch option that turns photos into line art that we found oddly compelling, as well as frames and clip art. The phone handles MMS messages well, and includes one-touch options for sending a sketch message or a framed postcard message. The lack of Bluetooth transfer for photos is a serious deficiency. As Verizon Wireless still refuses to package their phones with a microSD card or USB cable, Bluetooth is our method of choice for getting pictures onto our PC, but the U740 lacks this option."

MobileBurn reviews the Samsung SCH-u740 and writes, "The Samsung SCH-u740 comes equipped with a standard fare 1.3 megapixel camera, with flash. The camera takes about 5 seconds to start up and is fairly quick to respond when the shutter button is pressed. Once a picture is snapped, the phone gives you the option to save, send, or erase the recently taken picture. The user interface on the camera was efficient and the settings were easy to find. The settings include quality level and resolution as well as white balance and color effect options. The white balance setting has options for auto, sunny, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, as well as a welcomed manual setting that determines white balance based on a sample photograph taken of a white piece of paper. A feature I found quite handy was the camera's ability to take multi-shots. What this means is the camera can be set to take a series of 3 or 5 photos in rapid succession. For example, if you were at a bicycle race, you could take multiple photos one after the other as the bikes pass by. The SCH-u740's cameraphone can be used in both portrait and landscape modes, and the final photo will be rotated accordingly. The SCH-u740's camera in general takes reasonable photos. They are decently sharp for a non-autofocus camera, but the photos do tend to be a bit darker than they should."

MobileTechReview reviews the Samsung u740 and writes, "The u740's 1.3 megapixel camera takes average photos by camera phone standards at that resolution. Images have reasonable sharpness, accurate color and noticeable noise indoors (but an undue amount by any means). Color saturation is pleasing and the LED flash helps a tiny bit with low light shots if the subject is close. The camera software has a a broad range of settings including timer mode, digital zoom, multi-shot modes, brightness and 10 color effects including the interesting "sketch" effect. You can save images and videos to internal or card memory, and transfer them (one by one) from internal to card memory."

LaptopMag has a review of the Samsung SCH-u740 and writes, "The SCH-u740 features a 1.3-MP camera (1280 x 960-pixel resolution) with flash, which takes crisp stills, albeit ones that lack vibrancy. The camera also has video-recording capability (a max of 15 seconds for multimedia messages, continuous in other modes), but the slightest movements caused the visuals to become heavily pixelated. Other features include stereo Bluetooth and a microSD slot for loading the phone with up to 2GB of additional content. ... The SCH-u740 excels as a phone. For the most part, calls were clear with only the occasional breakup, and the speaker was quite loud. Voice dialing also worked quite well during our tests."

Mobiledia reviews the Samsung SCH-U740 and writes, "While the built-in 1.3-megapixel camera produces fair quality photos, the difficulty in accessing the function proves very frustrating. First, the lack of an exterior camera button on the U740 makes it awkward to take self-portraits. Also, a special camera/video button often doesn't work and when it does, requires the user to hold it down for a few seconds before the options become apparent and the phone's frustrating menu patterns inhibits its offerings"

Digital Trends has a review of the Samsung SCH-u740 and writes, "Pictures taken with the 1.3 MP camera/camcorder are superior, even when compared to shots snapped with 2 MP models. Colors are bright and true, images are crisp, and black levels are high with deep contrast. ... But while image quality is high, accessibility is low. We couldn't figure out how — or if it’s even possible — to transmit photos via Bluetooth, even though we had no trouble establishing a connection between the u740 and a PC. We ended up hot-swapping the card and using a card reader to move our shots out of the phone. ... Mirroring its dual-hinge lid, the u740 is a dichotomy. It does so many things well — great little camera, great reception and voice quality, speedy wireless Web service — but then makes them frustrating and difficult to use. Great ideas, but they’re poorly executed. Disappointing."