Pros

· An incredible 65K color TFD display. Even better than the already top of the line SGH-S105.

· 40 chord polyphonic ring tones. Ring tones so beautiful, you'd swear they were MP3s.

· Class 8 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.

· Multimedia Messaging. Even without email you can send messages to an email address.

Cons

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

· No voice dialing or commands. Ahhh...

· Samsung got rid of downloadable MIDlets. So now you're stuck with the same games that were preinstalled on the SGH-S105. At least they could have changed games.

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

· Connectivity is just about as bad as it gets. Can't transfer anything through infrared. No pictures, no ring tones, no games, nothing.

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

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

Conclusion

The thing that baffles us is that Samsung enhanced some feature in the SGH-V205, yet has also taken away some things we loved about the SGH-S105. You would think that they would constantly be improving newer models.

The major addition to the SGH-V205 is the built-in camera. However without the ability to easily transfer pictures from your phone to a computer, it's severely hinders its usefulness. The only thing you can do is set them on your background. In our tests, the pictures taken with the camera were decent, but not printable quality.

Regardless, the color screen is amazing. You really have to see it to appreciate the brightness and clarity of the screen. Be forewarned, once you set your eyes on it, your old phone will look terrible.

Another improvement was the ring tone quality. Samsung stays top of the line with the introduction of the SGH-V205's 40 chord polyphonic ring tone. Quite simply unbelievable.

One enormous drawback is the lack of connectivity to a computer. Infrared is a joke. Expect to buy multimedia for your phone. Pretty much the only thing you can use infrared for is to use your phone as a modem.

The downloadable MIDlets made the SGH-S105 that much more appealing. Unfortunately, such functions are not found on the SGH-V205.

With all the changes the SGH-V205 has compared to the SGH-S105, you might want to weigh your options before you choose. On one hand, the SGH-S105 has more multimedia features and connectivity. But the SGH-V205 has a better screen and enhanced ring tones.

Either way, both phones do very well in our reception tests, and both are good phones. But overall we preferred the SGH-S105 slightly over the SGH-V205 due to its flexibility. However connectivity doesn't really bother you, and you tend to stick with the same wallpapers, ring tones, and games, then the SGH-V205 might be a better choice for you. Either way, we didn't think the SGH-V205 was a huge improvement over the SGH-S105 and gave it a rating of:

< Prev Next >

This article is Copyright 2002-2009 Mobiledia Corp. and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from Mobiledia. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact us.