As an EV-DO phone, the Samsung SCH-A930 supports Verizon's V Cast video service and V Cast Music. The interface and menu structure for the music and video players are similar to those of other Verizon EV-DO handsets, and the content offerings are about the same as well. The 1.3-megapixel camera can take pictures in four resolutions, from 160x120 up to 1,280x960. Other settings were plentiful. You can choose from six white-balance options, six color effects, four metering options, a multishot feature, three quality options, and three shutter sounds (plus a silent option). There's also a flash, a self-timer, and a 10X digital zoom, though the last option is unusable at the highest resolution. We weren't huge fans of Verizon's menu structure, but we loved the photo menu, which allows you to keep viewing your subject, while various pop-up menus display the editing choices.
The camcorder takes videos with sound in two time formats: 15 seconds for multimedia messages or up to 10 minutes for storing on the phone. Speaking of which, you get 31MB of internal shared memory in addition to the aforementioned Micro SD card slot. You'll need to buy a card, however, as one is not included with the phone. Photo quality was quite good, with distinct colors and object lines. Lighter colors looked a bit washed out, but our snaps were enjoyable overall.
You can personalize the Samsung SCH-A930 with a variety of wallpaper, display themes, alert sounds, and clock styles. Since this is a Verizon phone, there aren't that many included choices, so you'll need to buy more options and ring tones via the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. There are no included games, so avid gamers will have to buy titles.
We tested the dual-band, dual-mode (CDMA 800/1900; EV-DO) Samsung SCH-A930 in San Francisco using Verizon's service. Call quality was good overall, though some voices sounded robotic at times. Volume was exceptionally loud; however, we could hear callers plainly, and they reported the same. Calls over the speakerphone and a Bluetooth headset were also satisfactory, and we had no problems establishing a connection with a headset. We also had no trouble getting a signal for phone calls, but our EV-DO coverage was much spottier than it was on other Verizon 3G phones we've tested. We had a lot of difficulty in buildings and outdoors in general, and overhead obstructions caused more service problems.
Streaming video quality over the V Cast service was on a par with that of the Samsung SCH-A950--the clips were clean but not too pixelated. Music downloads took just less than a minute, a bit longer than on the SCH-A950 but still speedy enough. Yet, the above findings were true only when the phone had acquired an EV-DO connection. Because our 3G service was unreliable with this phone, the connection dropped out in the midst of a track download or a video stream on more than one occasion. Overall, it was a frustrating experience, though it may be more due to Verizon's network rather than the phone itself. Music quality was about what we expected for a phone--good but nothing spectacular--though the stereo speakers weren't very powerful.
The Samsung SCH-A930 has a rated talk time of 4.3 hours and a promised standby time of 8.3 days; we got 4 hours, 32 minutes of talk time in our tests and 10 days of standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the Samsung SCH-A930 has a digital SAR rating of 0.77 watt per kilogram.
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"If all you really want is a phone, not a gadget box, the Samsung sch A930 is for you."
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