Review: Samsung SPH-A580
"From the start, the Samsung SPH-A580 looks like your basic cell phone, and in many ways, it is. You'll find a speakerphone, but there's no camera, multimedia messaging, or any of the fancy offerings that carriers are fond of touting. But sometimes looks can be deceiving. Though the SPH-A580 is primarily a phone for making calls, you'll also find a new and interesting Sprint feature: wireless backup, which offers SPH-A580 owners an opportunity to, well, wirelessly back up their contacts to Sprint's Web site. Though the SPH-A580 is a tad expensive if you pay full price ($179), service rebates should knock it down to less than $100. And better yet, by purchasing it online, you could eliminate the price tag altogether.
Given Samsung's long history of pumping out silver flip phones, the SPH-A580's design is ho-hum. There's no external antenna, it's relatively compact (3.6 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches; 3.4 ounces), and it feels solid in hand. We like the blue border that continues to the phone's rear face and the prominent speaker above the external display. Speaking of which, however, the external screen is not impressive. Tiny (96x32 pixels) and rectangular--no bigger than the display on the Sanyo VI-2300--it supports only 4-color, grayscale resolution. It shows the time, battery life, signal strength, and caller ID (where available) but not the date. Immediately above the screen is a tiny service light that blinks during calls, but you can turn it off.
Review courtesy of c|net (click for full review)
