By Richard Sheasley
If you haven't done so already, you can read part 1 of the Fone-Review Samsung TracFone T301G review or check the TracFone website for the latest T301g price and availability in your area.
After spending some time with this phone there are a number
of things to like about it. If you can get past the couple biggest limitations
already pointed out in part 1 (small keypad, browser button position and
location, etc.); then you should be pretty happy carrying this phone. It
definitely is ranked up at the top few of the best-featured phones Tracfone has
available in this reviewer’s eyes. Very few new limitations or issues have
changed my mind on this phone as a good Tracfone selection. Remember that Tracfone can and does change
pricing, special promotional packages and offerings at any time. For the
expense of this Tracfone purchase, it is
one of the best-valued (but not the cheapest by far) phones Tracfone has
released for its features and capabilities.
It is also not approaching a true “smart phone” due to the
limitations and lock down on the browser that Tracfone has elected to continue
on this phone. But it is one of the few stylish camera and bluetooth capable
phones out there under the Tracfone cellular offerings. Also the bluetooth will
only work with a headset and not allow transferring of files with any computer
through the bluetooth. The reviewer has not tried a USB data cable with this
phone, but understand that there are a few sources now for these data cables.
When pairing with a bluetooth headset make sure you enable the bluetooth
headset search first as the phone times out very fast in it’s searching. It is
a simple straight forth process unless it is your first time making a bluetooth
connection, in which case you will need to follow the steps and make sure you
have your devices pairing pass code (usually 0000) and the bluetooth connection
on the phone is enabled.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2153950_setup-bluetooth-headset-work-cell.html
The phone battery life is what I would rate as excellent.
Unless you are a heavy minutes or text messaging user, then should be able to
go 3 days or so without having to recharge the phone.
Signal Quality is another area that is commonly very
important to cell phone users of any level. I tested this on a driving trip in
some rural areas up against a Motorola W370G series Tracfone. The Motorola 37xG
series has been a long time favorite of Tracfone users looking for good solid
signals. Both were on the same basic GSM
network - AT&T in this case but your service area may vary. The signal bars
were always pretty closely matched, anytime one phone showed roaming the other
did too. Likewise, the areas where no signal messages were received and calls
could not be completed matched also - a period of about 45 minutes on my drive.
Of course
your coverage should be checked based on your travels and zip codes through
both the Tracfone web site, and the underlying GSM carriers - AT&T and
T-Mobile that Tracfone uses. Many of the features limitations and capabilities
can best be answered on the Samsung web site’s FAQ’s:
Menu structure on the phone:
There are 9 menu items (available in either text description
or graphical icons via a setting) with:
1 Prepaid - Add & Buy Airtime, Turn on or
off the airtime service and minutes on the display, serial number, sim number,
and code entry- specific programming info
2 Contacts - pretty normal list of features including a
reject list for those you want to ignore any further calls
3 Recent Calls - History on
calls, call time, as well as data volume usage
4 Messages - Standard messaging lists as well as a template
for common text messages (ie “Where are you?” etc. to save common texting
entry)
5 Browser – Home Page, favorites, enter a URL (limitations
and experiences discussed in the first impression review and further pretty
much make this only a storage for common addresses as the standard wap (wap is
wireless application protocol) - web
sites do not work, only the Tracfone wap web site for options including:
1 downloads (such as ringtones,
graphics, etc.)
2 sports (by league or a brief list
of highlight stories)
3 weather reports (national
outlook, radar, satellite or find a location by city or fastest and best is by
a zip code)
4 news – various categories such as
world, national, business, entertainment, strange, sci-tech, politics, sports,
health
5 movies can find a theater and get
info on top box office, new releases, coming attractions, as well as general
movie news
6 horoscopes-
know your sign
7 lottery - by state to get info on
top jackpots and to find games
8 my stuff - kind of like a favorites section
Many sites linked under the search results receive the HTTP
Error: 403 forbidden – so do not expect the full web search and wap enabled
site selection you may have on a standard data plan enabled prepaid phone plan.
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/detail.do?group=mobilephones&type=mobilephones&subtype=morecarriers&subsubtype=tracfone&model_cd=SGH-T301YKGTRF
As mentioned in part 1 of the review many popular and handy
sites are not available in the browser such as testing wap m.ebay.com, or Paypal’s mobile.paypal.com, and other wap
enabled sites - for more on this read the browser section of the Samsung phone
documentation so you can familiarize yourself with the browser operation and
reduce the time to reach info you may want. Each minute of browser and data
results in a .5 unit deduction, so units can be eaten up stumbling through
menus and links haphazardly.
6 Games and Apps (really just Games and Camera) - two games are
included Steamhouse Jumpboy (ver 1.17) (a Mario style game to catch objects)
and A+Sudoku (a grid based logic puzzle game) are loaded and ready for
entertainment
The Apps – really the camera - a VGA (640x480 resolution) with
some zoom and a maximum estimated 50 pictures in the storage (depending on the
resolution of the shots stored)
7 My Folder (storage for audio and graphics and used memory
space) - Downloaded tones, recorded audio, photos and setting the background
wallpaper to a custom picture
8 Tools - (some of the nicest features discussed further below in recap)
1 Alarms
2 Calendar
3 Notes
4
Calculator
5 Tip
Calculator
6 Converter
1
Currency
2
Length
3
Weight
4
Volume
5
Area
6
Temperature
7 Timer
8 Stopwatch
9 World
Time
10 Sim App
(Unlock only selection - shows the phones ICC-ID Note that Tracfone terms of
service does not support unlocking their phones for use with other services)
9 Settings
1 Sound
Profile
2 Set
Display
3 Set time
and date
4 Set phone
5 Set calls
6 Bluetooth
(turn on or off, show devices, bluetooth info, search for new device)
7 Set
applications - (Message, Camera, Record Audio, Calendar, Contacts)
Recap of Features likes and dislikes:
What it does well:
It has a good selection of tools, some that usually not
available on even higher priced cell phones such as the conversion calculators
for many English or US measurements to other types common elsewhere. This is a
handy item for travel including the currency conversion (just make sure the
rates are what you end up paying as they do vary regularly). Also sports fans
may find the stop watch feature handy with split times and all included as one
of the tools.
What it does not do (or limitations in addition to
mentions in features):
There is no music player, mp3 etc. built into this
phone (other than possibly ring tones which the reviewer did not try loading
any standard mp3 audio for custom ring tones due to the limitation of the
bluetooth connection, and according to the FAQ’s on the Samsung web site, most
custom ringtones must be downloaded from Tracfone), one day this reviewer may
eventually see a need for some custom ringtone that stands out from the crowd.
The phone has no external storage (such as miniSD cards) or
expansion of the memory past the 128 mb listed in the Samsung specifications,
of which about 40 kb reported as usable free on the my folder upon initial set
up. Some additional memory could maybe be
freed up by deleting or removing the games apps etc. that are standard on the
phone to store more photos or audio recording, etc.
A locked down browser that can reach the Tracfone web site,
but not many other popular sites out there for full functionality just does not
make much sense in the eyes of your reviewer. After all, more web and data
access could result in much more unit usage and therefore more income for
Tracfone. It is not all just about having to send pictures via messaging, or
downloading only those ringtones and graphics that Tracfone (both of which end
up as revenue for Tracfone) has available on their site. Phone users checking
other wap sites for work, fun, or pleasure are extremely limited with popular
sites like Ebay and the like that get mobile web traffic regularly.
Wishes:
-A browser button recessed more or positioned so it is not
as easy to hit and connect by mistake
-A bit of a larger keypad
-An easier way to slide open the screen (without touching
the screen and leaving fingerprints all over it)- maybe not an issue for women
with longer fingernails
-A full browser that is not locked to Tracfone’s selected
site
-A bluetooth that could be connected to computer for backup
of contacts, addresses etc.
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If you haven't done so already, you can read part 1 of the Fone-Review Samsung TracFone T301G review or check the TracFone website for the latest T301g price and availability in your area.
Copyright
info – This article is copyright 2009 – no part of this can be reproduced
without the approval of the author and http://www.fone-review.com/
About
the Reviewer: Richard Sheasley has been involved in sales and support of
personal computers, data networks and technology since 1982.
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