Basic Features

The Samsung SCH-A890 is dual-band CDMA 800 / 1900 MHz and has a 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery rated at an impressive 4.5 hours and 336 hours of talk and standby times respectively. However, those are under optimal conditions.

When handset manufacturers and mobile phone carriers list talk-time and standby-time ratings, they usually include disclaimers about variable performance and often refer to the times they publish as maximum times. Some quote expected battery life ranges, and in this case you're probably safe to assume you'll experience at least the minimum rated range. Actual talk and standby times are lower.

Screen

With dual TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCDs, displays are bright and vivid. The external 128 x 96 px screen is capable of showing 65K colors, conveniently presenting useful information such as date, time, battery level, signal strength, custom wallpaper, and caller ID. Featuring 262K colors, the internal 176 x 220 px is large and responsive during Camera Mode, playing games, and viewing videos.

Being TFT active display matrices, the screens can achieve more vibrant colors and faster refresh rates over other LCD technologies. Circuit transistors are placed directly on the glass at the pixel locations, replacing the time needed to scan improving refresh rates needed for using the SCH-A890's screen as a television during streaming video.

Audio

The SCH-A890's internal synthesizer produces polyphonic ringtones at an impressive 64 simultaneous chords. Utilize the MIDI file format, music is recreated by essentially playing "musical notes." Thus the more simultaneous chords that are overlaid means more realistic sounding ringtones.

Steadily increasing in the industry, the SCH-A890's 64 chords is state-of-the-art. However, a gradual migration to MP3 tones has been taking place, which unfortunately the SCH-A890 doesn't support. As opposed to MIDI, MP3s are straight recordings, allowing users to record and set voice, sounds, or music.

Messaging

The SCH-A890 contains all the standard text messaging features include SMS (Short Messaging Service), EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service), and MMS (Multimedia Message Service).

With EMS users can format their messages with attributes such as style, size, alignment, and paragraphs, while MMS goes one step further by allowing users to add images, sounds, videos, and time-based sequencing. Combined with the built-in camera, consumers can snap and record photos and videos to send text message vacation postcards to friends and family.

With T9 predictive text, messages can be typed quicker. Instead of having to press keys several times for a letter, the SCH-A890 chooses from a dictionary of words and phrases and anticipate what is being written.

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