This multimedia clamshell features Alltel's Celltop menu interface, Bluetooth and a 1.3-megapixel camera, but will you flip for its features or will it leaving you wanting more? The Samsung SCH-U520 is a bit of a departure from the manufacturer's wafer-thin handsets.
At 0.7 inches thick, the U520 isn't svelte, and compared to the ultra-slim , it looks and feels plus-sized. The U520 does feature a unique, dark chocolate-hued shell that has a nice metallic sheen to it, even though it's made of plastic.
The flip phone also features dedicated music controls on its face, and a bright external and internal display, but the internal screen is pretty low-resolution and suffers a bit from the screendoor effect. Call quality on the SCH-U520 was just about average, with the occasional bouts of static, and the handset gave a tinny quality to our voices that our pals complained about. However, it's important to note that we were roaming off Alltel's network, since the carrier doesn't offer service to New York City or the surrounding Jersey suburbs.
Our signal was often very spotty and would shift, in our office, from one or two bars to full signal. The U520 includes Bluetooth, voice tagging and a speakerphone that was nice and loud, but a little tough to activate as it shares a side button with the camera. However, we were disappointed by the lack of conference calling.
The clamshells contact list is simple but features a nice selection of entry fields and supports while-you-type searching. Similar to call quality, talk time on the handset wasn't anything to write home about, coming in at about three hours, which is about 30 minutes shy of the manufacturer's claims. The Samsung SCH-U520 does a decent job at messaging, fitting 111 characters on the screen at once for outgoing messages and 108 characters for incoming messages, but it's still short of the standard 160 character text message.
Typing on the flip phone's keypad was quite comfortable despite the flat shape of the keys. However, the buttons are nice and large with enough space between them to avoid typos. Messaging incorporates the phonebook nicely, with support for while-you-type searching.
Still, the lack of instant messaging was disappointing.
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