whiskey7
05-27-2005, 03:29 PM
Yes, this a random pair of old phones to compare, but what the hay.
Despite it being old now, I just got the a620 a couple months ago on Ebay (it was brand new, sealed in box). I was curious about how its reception compares with my previous phone--the Hitachi P300. The P300 has a reputation for having very good reception.
I did the comparison in a back hallway of a shopping mall where there is no Sprint signal toward the end of the hallway. The result: the phones faired exactly the same. They both stopped being able to make/hold a call at the same point in the hallway. The Samsung a620 *was* quicker to show "Searching for Service" (I had them both set to Sprint PCS only, in the roaming setting). Although the P300 showed a Sprint signal with zero bars at the point in the hallway where the a620 first showed "Searching for Service," it was not able to connect a call.
I just wish I could transfer the earpiece from the P300 to the a620. The earpiece in the P300 is beautiful--like a good landline phone. While not entirely terrible, the a620 has faint beeps, tends to have too much treble, and is commonly too loud on the lowest of 8 volume settings. I actually put a small sticker over the earpiece of my a620 to try to dampen the volume and muffle out some of the treble (it helped a little).
Otherwise, the a620 has a lot of great qualities:
--beautiful screen
--made of high quality materials, nice motorola-ish metal "swoosh" on faceplate
--fast vision
--decent camera with lots of adjustable options
--camera is hidden on back (phone doesn't look like a camera phone and therefore looks more professional/classy in my opinion)
--good battery life, has a battery save mode
--sound quality seems to be good for the person on the other end
Despite it being old now, I just got the a620 a couple months ago on Ebay (it was brand new, sealed in box). I was curious about how its reception compares with my previous phone--the Hitachi P300. The P300 has a reputation for having very good reception.
I did the comparison in a back hallway of a shopping mall where there is no Sprint signal toward the end of the hallway. The result: the phones faired exactly the same. They both stopped being able to make/hold a call at the same point in the hallway. The Samsung a620 *was* quicker to show "Searching for Service" (I had them both set to Sprint PCS only, in the roaming setting). Although the P300 showed a Sprint signal with zero bars at the point in the hallway where the a620 first showed "Searching for Service," it was not able to connect a call.
I just wish I could transfer the earpiece from the P300 to the a620. The earpiece in the P300 is beautiful--like a good landline phone. While not entirely terrible, the a620 has faint beeps, tends to have too much treble, and is commonly too loud on the lowest of 8 volume settings. I actually put a small sticker over the earpiece of my a620 to try to dampen the volume and muffle out some of the treble (it helped a little).
Otherwise, the a620 has a lot of great qualities:
--beautiful screen
--made of high quality materials, nice motorola-ish metal "swoosh" on faceplate
--fast vision
--decent camera with lots of adjustable options
--camera is hidden on back (phone doesn't look like a camera phone and therefore looks more professional/classy in my opinion)
--good battery life, has a battery save mode
--sound quality seems to be good for the person on the other end