Sound Quality

While testing the Samsung SGH-S105, sound quality was excelling. Incoming calls were very clean, although at times there were clipping. One great thing we noticed was a significant reduction in the hiss that plagues GSM phones. If you've read our previous reviews you know that this is caused by vibrations from the GSM technology in the earpiece.

As for outgoing calls, in quiet environments, the SGH-S105 performed just as well. However in noisy situations, noise canceling wasn't as significant as in other phones we've tested. Thus, you might have to stick your finger in the other ear.

RF Performance

The SGH-S105 has excellent RF performance. One big reason is because it has an external antenna. Its able to call from low signal areas, and manages to hold on well. Rest assured, the SGH-S105 will have no problems with reception from a hardware perspective. Tower distance and signal strength is another matter. Overall the SGH-S105 is an excellent phone from a reception standpoint, and gets our rating of:

Pros

· Excellent 65K color display. Samsung has the best screens to date, hands down. At 128 x 160 px, its screen size is one of the largest for a non-PDA phone, not to mention the external LCD.

· Incredible multimedia features. You won't believe your eyes and ears. Large 128 x 128 px wallpaper, 16 instrument polyphonic ring tones, color schemes to customize your phone. The pictures blows the other phones out of the water. The ring tones sound beautifully close to MP3 quality.

· Cool downloadable games. Although some of the preinstalled games were boring, the ability to install MIDlets and Java games are a huge plus.

· GPRS support. With all the downloading this phone can do, it's good to know you won't be waiting a lifetime.

· Excellent reception and sound quality. The SGH-S105's external antenna holds small signals extremely well. You won't have problems calling out, and if you do, you're out of your service provider's range.

· Loud ring volume. Even in your pocket you'll hear the phone's melodious rings in the noisiest environments.

Cons

· No email. "Huh? They still make phones without email?" Apparently they do.

· No voice dialing or commands.

· Small memory. 300 kb is definitely not enough for a phone with high resolution backgrounds, polyphonic ring tones, and MIDlets. Expect to be deleting stuff often.

· You can't add new words to the T9 predictive text. A huge drawback if you're a messaging maniac.

· Can't synchronize with Outlook or Lotus Notes. If you're used to using these programs, then you might want to consider other phones.

· Data counter? Don't expect to find it here. Samsung for got to put one in.

· No profile settings. This seems to be a common feature in other phones.

· Low speaker volume. You'll have to go to a quiet room if you're trying to talk at a party.

· Can't ring and vibrate at the same time. You can either ring, or vibrate, or vibrate first then ring.

· Doesn't automatically capitalize first word of a sentence. It doesn't sound like much because all you have to do is hit an extra button, but when you're typing a couple hundred messages, they add up.

· No customizable color schemes. It would have been nice to make and download your own color creations.

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