SGH X-100 Detailed Review. Review on Samsung SGH-X100

Samsung SGH-X100 is a beautifully designed phone that will catch your eye immediately. It snugly fits into the palms of your hand.

Samsung C100,and Samsung X100 are similar models launched keeping younger generation in mind. X100 is the improved version of C100. Other phones in the same category are Nokia 3100 (and 3120 which is basically 3100 in attractive cover) and Sony Ericsson?s T230.

C100 and X100 have much better 65K display than Nokia?s 4K display. While C100 has a IrDA port and X100 does not, but it?s still much better.

I got X100 for about Rs 6300 (in Sept 2004) with bill but you can get it for Rs 500 less in gray market, although it?s not recommended to buy from gray market because you can never be sure about quality of batteries available.

X100 is GPRS enabled (means you can surf the web on it) dual band phone. It has loads of memory- 9MB user memory, 1000 nos phone book with provision to store 5 phone nos per contact plus 1 email address. 200 sms memory, 150 MMS memory.

You have the option to store a sms or Phone book contact on Phone itself or SIM.

Signal reception is good and sound is clear. In my opinion it?s the most attractive model in it?s category.

X100 support 40 polyphonic ring tones in .mid and .mmf formats. One of the review I read on this site says that ring volume of X100 is low but it?s not true. Since it?s ringer is located at the back, when you hold it in the hands facing front, sound may seem to be low but when you put it in ur pocket you will find that it?s sufficiently loud. Advantage of having ringer at back is that when phone is kept on a hard surface it rings much louder due to resonance, so you can hear it ring even if you are not in same room. The same review also said that it doesn?t support MIDI format but it is not true. However .mmf files are played better than MIDI files.

Navigating menus is easy with 4 way navigation key. Menus are intuitively designed. You can reach a menu item using key pad short cuts. You can go to silent mode, lock the key pad or start browsing the mobile web at the push of a single key.

Although a bit small, keys are comfortably placed and have good tactile response. Messaging is available in both Hindi and English. Typing in both languages is supported by predictive text input systems (namely T9 for English and NeoPad for Hindi). You can also use a mix of Hindi and English both in messaging and phone book. The T9 mode accurately predicts most of the words but the Hindi prediction system needs a little revamp.

Comparing to Nokia 3100 ? 3100 is a Tri-Band phone with a really long battery life. X100 is Dual-band and has a shorter battery life. 3100 has 850mAH battery while X100 has 900mAH battery but it?s battery life is short because of much brighter and clearer power hungry LCD display. I?m comparing this feature with a Nokia phone because Nokia phones are known for their good standby and talk time. In normal usage you can expect a battery life of 2 days X100 looks much better than ugly looking cheap plastic exterior of Nokia 3100.

With a data cable (available at Rs600 from lesser known brands), you can manage the contents of your phone very easily. You can export/import your phone book/message data. This facility is very good since it will be real pain to key in 1000 phone nos along with name and email if your data is lost due to some reason. Using data cable you can send messages directly from your phone. You can also upload/download images and melodies to and from your phone. All this is done using Samsung EasyStudio software freely available for download at Samsung website. But note that you cannot upload JAVA application to your phone from computer using data cable, you must download them from wap sites.

In short, if you are considering a phone in Rs5000-Rs7000 range go for X100.

When you are buying any product it?s recommended that you check out the manual and specification sheets of that product available at manufacturer?s website. But now I?m going to discuss some of the aspects of Samsung SGH-X100 that don?t find any mention in spec sheets or manual?s along with some less noticeable functions taken from User?s manual.

HITS

1. You can assign different tones and images to different persons in your phone book. Here you are not bound with the limited number of caller group as in other phones. But the catch is that for this purpose you can only use the inbuilt images and tones and not the one?s in your gallery. For message and alarm tones too you can use only the inbuilt tones.

   
   




2. The caller group function is however still present and these caller groups may be assigned any tone.

   
   




3. All sent messages are stored in outbox automatically and there?s no way to turn this off so, if you send a confidential message, you will have to delete it manually form the outbox.

   
   




4. The phone has a sound recording facility but it requires you to browse through a maze of menu options. It can record sound clips of one minute duration each in .amr format.

   
   

But don?t expect to use it as Dictaphone since it will record voice only from a close range.

1. The phone cannot play video files although you can view animated .gif images.

   
   




2. The phone may get stuck if you open some incompatible WAP site and you will have to restart it.

   
   




3. The morning call alarm function allows it to sound an alarm even in quite mode. It has an auto power function which allows it to switch on automatically to sound the alarm and then switch off again.

   
   




4. Though phone comes with a phone security function but it does not prevents anyone form using Delete All command on your messages. The privacy features protects multimedia messages, pictures and images but not short messages and phone book.