Samsung Reclaim M560 Review
Not too far after the release of the Exclaim, Samsung introduced the new Eco-Friendly, vertically sliding Reclaim messaging phone. Being Sprint and Samsung’s first Eco-Friendly offering, could it attract the masses that they desire, or will it just be another messaging phone?
Design
Form and Size
The Reclaim is a vertically sliding messaging phone that exposes a full QWERTY keyboard when slid upwards and a very compact form when closed. The shape is a very awkward looking rounded-square which it is able to pull off an eye-pleasing shape somehow. To give some comparison, the closest phone in the Sprint lineup that the Reclaim compares to feature and size-wise is the LG Lotus, which is a full QWERTY flip phone. When lined up side by side next to the Lotus, the Reclaim almost matches it in thickness and width and is almost a third of an inch taller than the Lotus when closed. The measurements for the Reclaim are 3.68x2.3x0.67 compared to the Lotus which measures in at 3.3x2.4x0.7
Color
Being an eco-friendly phone, the Reclaim comes in two environmentally themed colors; Earth Green, and Ocean Blue. The two colors make up the majority of the phones’ body with silver accents on the earpiece, directional pad, and the speaker phone and back buttons. When slid open, the Earth Green model has a charcoal grey keyboard with green highlighting the numbers and function key. The Ocean Blue has a silver keyboard with blue highlighting. The Ocean blue also has a unique circle pattern on the back side that gives it a more interesting look.
Build
Being environmentally sustainable and made of bio-plastics, the Reclaim might come off as a very fragile and flimsy phone without actually handling it. This, however, is completely false. The Reclaim is a very solid phone, feeling much better than Samsung’s previous vertical slider on Sprint, the M520. When slid up and down, there are no creaks or moving from side to side, just very solid movement on the slider.
Screen
Simply put, the screen on the Samsung Reclaim is excellent. Measuring in at 2.4 inches, the screen looks huge on the phones’ oddly shaped body, and for a mid-range phone like itself, it is quite large. The size of the screen isn’t the only good thing; the quality is also excellent with QVGA resolution (240x320), as well as the 262k colors that it provides. Compared to its much larger and bulkier brother - the Exclaim, the Reclaim’s screen seems much more crisp and refined and is very impressive for what it is.
Buttons/Keypad
At first glance, anyone with medium to large fingers will probably be terrified of the small looking keys on the Reclaim and want to steer clear of this phone, but when used, it is actually very easy to get used to. The keyboard is somewhat similar to the LG Lotus, but with a little less feedback and definition between keys. However, the keyboard still has very good travel and key-presses are very solid with a decent amount of click. The only minor downfall on the keyboard of the Reclaim is the small space bar. When looked at, it seems like it would be impossible to use but after using it for a while it is just like any other keyboard and becomes very easy to use.
When closed, the Reclaim reveals the navigation cluster which consists of a 4 directional navigation pad, a Menu/OK button and the typical talk and end keys. Above those are the only two buttons on the front that aren’t flush with the rest of the phone which are the dedicated speaker phone buttons and the back key, and above that there are two soft keys. On the sides of the phone you have a standard volume toggle on the left, and a dedicated camera key on the right.
Other
Samsung suited the Reclaim with the now industry-standard Micro-USB charging port. However, the charger that is included isn’t the average “run-of-the-mill charger.” Inside the recycled, soy-ink printed packaging there is an Energy-Star certified charger that runs much more efficient than your average charger, keeping with up with the environmentally sound trend that Samsung brings with the Reclaim.
Features
Camera
As with most mid-level Sprint devices, the Reclaim comes with a 2.0 megapixel camera that shoots both pictures and videos, as well as a new feature that allows users to take panoramic pictures. The camera will obviously work in a pinch but it isn’t something you should drop your digital camera for. The panoramic feature is an interesting idea, but fails to work well in most cases. The phone will ask the user to pan from side to side and while doing so the phone snaps a few pictures, putting them together to reveal a panoramic shot. Again, this will not replace the wide-angle lens on a DSLR, but it is a nice novelty feature to have.
Music/Entertainment
Since implementing the One-Click user interface, there hasn’t been much difference in phones regarding software, music, or TV. Staying with that, the Reclaim has every feature that Rant, Lotus, Exclaim, LX-370 have regarding music and entertainment, namely, the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV, and Sprint Radio. All these stream well on the Reclaim, although the TV looks pixilated and choppy at times as it does on most Sprint phones with a larger screen. The one thing it does add however is a 3.5mm headphone jack which is a welcome addition to any phone that supports MP3, so you don’t have to lug around 2.5mm headphones as well as 3.5mm. The Reclaim also has a MicroSD card slot that can support up to 32GB for endless amounts of music and supports stereo Bluetooth with its A2DP support for the ability to listen wirelessly.
Messaging/Email
Being a messaging phone, the Reclaim obviously needs to do messaging and email well, and it does not disappoint. Like most phones on the Sprint network, the Reclaim comes loaded with Sprint’s Mobile Email application which supports just about everything from Lotus Notes, Exchange, Gmail, AOL and the like. The Reclaim also does the basic SMS messaging, as well as MMS which is very straight forward and simple as seen recently with the One-Click user interface.
Performance
As far as feature phones go, the Reclaim performs as well or outperforms every other phone in the Sprint lineup. The outstanding battery life the Reclaim has is possibly the best part of the phone, rating in at around 6 hours of constant talk time, which in this day and age is well above average. As stated earlier, when the battery does start to fade, the included eco-friendly charger charges the better much more efficiently than your standard charger.
Once again, Sprint loads a well-equipped feature phone with EVDO Rev-0 Data instead of Rev-A speeds, but once again it doesn’t really matter all that much because the average user would not be able to tell the difference between Rev-0 and Rev-A anyway.
Call quality and reception on the Reclaim are also well above average. When making calls with the Reclaim, the other end heard and understood calls very well, giving it a 9/10 which is about on par with the Blackberries. When listening, the phone is very clear and crisp, and rated a 10/10. Reception is also right up there with more recent Samsung phones, which tends to be good. It was a bit up and down at times, but usually only when used in buildings.
Overall, the Samsung Reclaim may arguably be the best non-smart phone in Sprint’s lineup today. Packed with great features and amazing battery life and screen, it will please just about anyone looking for a good phone. Although Samsung may have gone overboard with the amount of “Green” content on the phone, they mean well and defiantly help the environment with their manufacturing and packaging techniques. Hopefully this isn’t the last “Green” phone we see from Samsung and Sprint.
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