ArticlesIntroduction
So, I recently bought a Samsung D600 phone.
More seriously, this phone is the first one I have ever owned that wasn’t free with a plan, so I am unfamiliar with the typical features of phones these days. I tried to do some homework before the purchase. I found it hard going because the reviews and marketing for the phone was universally shallow. I knew that whatever phone I bought, it would be the little details that don’t appear in the marketing brochures that would make all the difference.
Eventually, I chose the Samsung D600 because it claimed to have all the major features I needed and, more importantly, a friend had one for sale, going cheap.
To help out the people who follow after me, here is a review of the D600 that focuses on things that Samsung doesn’t tell you.
I don’t have buyer’s remorse; I do not regret the purchase.
Time Line and Revision History
I plan to update this page occasionally, rather than to use the comments below.
28-Mar-06: Bought Phone
30-Mar-06: Version 1
30-Mar-06: Version 1.1 - More detail about Sync problems.
31-Mar-06: Version 1.2 - Updated sections on Synch problems, Voice Quality, Contact List, MP3 Player, Speaker-phone, WAP connection.
10-Apr-06: Version 1.3 - Updated sections on Synch speed, Memory and sorting by Surname.
22-Apr-06: Version 1.4 - Removed claim about hidden speaker; it was visible all along! Updated sections on synch, missing features. Added section about battery life.
29-Apr-06: Version 1.5 - Moaned more about the MP3 player and warned about chargers (under Battery section). Clarified section on WAP.
18-May-06: Version 1.6 - Added a description of the stopwatch function.
29-May-06: Version 1.7 - Moved the time line to the top. Corrected the discussion of calendar synching: I used to blame user error, now I blame the Samsung PC Studio software. Added link to separate article that details the brokenness of the calendar synching. Generally, changed my tone towards PC Studio 3 from “exasperated newbie” to “openly hostile expert”.
Slide and Keyboard
The D600 slides open, rather than flipping open. The slide is convenient, smooth and slick.
However, when retrieving the phone from my jeans pocket, it sometimes slides open on the way out.
The keyboard is two layered - the front and the inside. Reminds me of using a Hammond organ. It isn’t very ergonomic for your thumbs to shift between the two keyboards.
The buttons are, inevitably, very small, and I haven’t learned not to hit the wrong ones yet. The punishment for hitting the wrong key can be significant; losing 20 seconds’ worth of data entry for an appointment for example.
Like my 5-button mouse, there is a button on just about every surface. It is hard to pick it up while it is open without accidentally clicking a button and adjusting the volume or entering camera mode.
Screen and Graphics
The screen is very large.
I have been warned by other reviewers that the screen scratches and smudges with thumbprints. I am trying not to use my thumb on the screen to open it, but earprints and coin-scratches are inevitable.
The development included some serious levels of graphics design; the UI looks very slick. Sometimes it is at the cost of recognisability. Why does that bright blue cylinder have green arrows orbiting it? Oh! It is a battery being charged.
The screen is harder to read in direct sunlight than my old monochrome screen phone.
There are lots of customisations that can be performed, from the trivial (changing the colour scheme) to the trivial (associating photos, videos or icons to people, so when they ring, it has a specific display).
Unnecessary Noises
Imagine you are in a theatre and the performance is about to start, when you realise you forgot to turn off your phone. Fixing this should be both silent and incredibly fast…
Option 1: Turn off the phone: The D600 by default plays a loud animated sequence when it starts up and shuts down. I soon turned off the sound for these sequences. The delay, however, is noticeable.
Option 2: Muting the phone: The phone has a “quiet mode”. To enter quiet mode, you need to open it - which plays a sound! I’ve turned that sound off too.
Quiet mode is controlled by a setting - it can either vibrate only or be muted. My old, cheap Nokia made it easier to choose the mode based on your whim - you could decide to be truly mute, vibrate only, ring quietly, ring loudly, etc. I preferred that system. The D600 does allow you to set it to vibrate first, then ring if that fails, which is like a discreet setting.
It also plays a sound to indicate that you have turned off key-clicks (one of the first things I did.)
Overall, I think a lot of effort has been paid to the design of the audioscape as well as the graphics. However, I find the choices of sounds for alarms, ring-tones, reminders, etc. to be a bit overblown and complex, and aimed at a younger demographic. Please give me an option to have my phone go “ding ding” for reminders and “ring ring” for incoming calls, without sounding like Tinkerbell just crashed into a synthesizer.
Manual
The manual that came with the phone was hard to skim and criminally lightweight, especially the index.
Found a simple typo. That surprised me!
Voice Quality
I am not really experience enough to comment on the voice quality of the phone. It sounds okay, although when I used it in an only moderately noisy pub it wasn’t loud enough. I am not sure how to distinguish between a bad quality phone and a bad quality signal.
Speaker-Phone
In an earlier version of this article, I claimed there was no speaker-phone. This was inaccurate.
I originally thought the phone had no speaker-phone, because it wasn’t mentioned in the Manual’s index nor the contents when I looked.
It also doesn’t appear in the menu that is available during a phone call. I eventually discovered that pushing the “OK” button (also known as the “Web access/Confirm key”) will toggle the speakerphone.
Java and Games
Default Games
Having an entertainment unit to keep me amused while I wait for stuff is a key use-case I had.
The phone comes with 3 Java games. The games are professionally produced - there’s a platform game with a Japanese inspiration, a golf game (alright, it is a soccer game, but indistinguishable gameplay from a golf game) and a tank game I haven’t explored much yet.
They are all “twitch muscle games”. There’s no thinking games. That’s a real shame.
Free Software
I downloaded a freeware Klondike game as a test for Java downloads. Awful! It is mouse-based, which is clumsy on an arrow pad, and has no shortcuts. Unplayable.
I have also downloaded Freecell and Reversi. They seem playable at first blush.
Downloading Java
I haven’t quite got used to the idea of a controlled platform (like consoles) where you can’t run your own software whenever you want. Samsung intend you to only download Java software over WAP or wireless Internet. That has bandwidth costs. As a result, they preclude getting truly free (as in beer) software installed.
There are workarounds published on the net. All of the ones I saw had several common characteristics:
- Incomplete instructions (generally cribbed from each other) which are hard to follow.
- Require the installation of shareware software, generally without mentioning that there is a price associated with the tool.
- Linking to local copies of the software - excuse me if I decline from installing an unknown executable from a random personal site on the web.
- Require arcane steps to jump through - e.g. you should expect an error message to come up complaining about a missing DLL; you need to pretend to ring a fake phone number to get it into a certain mode.
- You can’t install software without immediately running it.
- Contain warnings that your phone will likely crash when you follow the instructions.
- If the site has comments turned on, it also has dozens of comments from people who it didn’t work for.
In my case, I got it to work once, but then it stopped working, but then later it started again.
Battery Life
The claim is 220 standby, 50 minutes talk and 20 minutes other stuff. I took the freshly charged phone on an interstate trip.
After about 30 hours standby, 20 minutes talk, one SMS and about 90 minutes listening to MP3 or playing games, it was down to one battery bar out of three. When I looked again, 9 standby hours later, it was completely dead.
Two chargers are provided - one for mains and one via the USB port. Driver software is required to charge via the USB port. I didn’t expect this, and it caused me a major disruption.
A side-benefit of having a Nokia phone over a Samsung is that spare model-generic Nokia chargers are prevalent in many homes and offices. Spare model-specific Samsung chargers are not.
Built In Applications
Contact List
It knows mobile, home, work and fax number for each person. It displays only the mobile in the contact list - you need to view the entry individually to see more.
It has a hard-limit of 1000 contacts, no matter how much memory you have.
Calendar
Appointment alarm is only goes off once; doesn’t seem to be possible to get it to remind me every few minutes until I dismiss it.
It gives you the option of selecting 12-hour or 24-hour clock. However, it is very strict. If you chose 12-hour, you must enter the data in 12-hour mode. You can’t take shortcuts by entering “21:00″ for 9:00pm.
The defaults are poor too. Start by entering a meeting at 9:00am that finishes at 9:30am. Now enter a new meeting. The default start time is 9:00am - pointless, really, but it gets worse. Change it to 4:00pm. Now advance to the end time. It defaults to 9:30am, the same day. Ugh.
When you display today’s date, all of your current tasks are displayed, with you appointments listed underneath; that seems backwards to me. If I have a few dozen outstanding tasks, I’ll never know about my upcoming meeting.
The underlying data model of the calendar has a number of limitations - e.g. can’t you book an appointment to occur every first Tuesday of November.
It has a hard-limit of 400 appointments, no matter how much memory you have. I hit this limit, before cleaning up my calendar down to 350. You can slightly reduce the amount by ignoring old appointments during the synch.
The biggest problem with the calendar is with the synching software, described below.
WAP “Internet”
I have used the Internet service briefly. It costs about 22c per 30 seconds. I visited this very page, and, given the obvious screen constraints, it rendered reasonably well.
The money is charged for connection time, so an obvious solution is to download quickly and read off-line. However, when I hang-up the WAP connection, however, it removes the page(s) from the screen. I know it has a cache because it offers the option to clear it. How about displaying it?!
When I first used the Sync program, I left it running, and when I picked it up (possibly clicking a few buttons) I found it was fetching news from the Sydney Morning Herald. In fright, I hit a button to cancel, and it said “Processing your purchase.” By the time I got it under control, I had spent $1.20 in service charges, all without having a clue what happened. (Sydney Morning Herald? Where did that address come from?)
Stop Press: The prominent “OK” in the center of the display is also the “Connect to WAP” button. It defaults to a telephone provider’s home page, which may have included the SMH link - so it wouldn’t have taken too many wrong presses to get it.
Overall, I have connected to WAP accidentally far more times than I have connected to it deliberately.
PowerPoint Viewer
I tested it out on a couple of complex PowerPoint slides. It did very well.
It didn’t support the flash or animations in the slides, but did present the text.
The rotated display (e.g. turn your phone on the side) made the (large) text readable to good eyes, but it insists on displaying navigation tips over the top of the slides. I wish I could make that disappear.
I am still trying to think of a single reason this feature would be useful. I can imagine some people would have data like price lists always available to them so they can flick through it, but I can’t think of anything I need like that.
MP3 Player
I was impressed that the speaker could work much more loudly than I would have predicted.
The playlist interface is a bit complex; I am still getting the hang of it.
I enjoy long podcasts as well as short songs. However, the MP3 player doesn’t remember where you were up to in an MP3 when you quit, and the ability to cue to a point is limited. This means if I am listening to a 45 minute podcast, I have to get all the way through it, or I have to start again at the beginning.
There is a way to pause, but it forgets the position when the phone is closed. I have walked around with the phone open in my pocket to overcome this, only to accidentally close it when I tried to remove it from my pocket. This is a serious cause of frustration, and I am now carrying an iPod too if I think I will be listening to MP3s.
I have had some very popular podcasts rejected due to the phone being unable to handle the MP3 format they use. I haven’t bothered to investigate.
Image Editing
The onboard image-editing software has some remarkable features and effects given its size, but doesn’t support crop. Huh?
I have Photoshop, so I won’t be using it much.
Stopwatch
I used the stopwatch function maybe half-a-dozen times a year, so it isn’t a critical application to me, but it certainly is useful.
The display is big enough to display four different lap times, simultaneously. Cool, huh?
Actually, it isn’t, but to explain why I need to go back to stop-watch basics.
Stopwatches 101
Consider a basic one-button stopwatches - the button is normally Start-Stop-Reset. You can pretty much only time one continuous event. Want to know how long it takes someone to run around an oval? This is perfect.
Now consider a basic two-button stopwatch, where one button is Start-Stop, and the other is Reset. You can still only time one item, but it can be interrupted, and continued. Want to know how much time did you spent on the phone today? This is perfect.
Now let’s get a more advanced two-button stopwatch, where one button is Start-Stop, and the other is Lap/Reset (depending on whether the timer is running). Not only can you still time something that gets interrupted, but you can display the latest lap time too. Want to know how long it takes someone to do 10 laps of the oval, with data on each lap? This is perfect.
There’s still a problem - what if the difference between “laps” is so small, that there isn’t time to note down the figure? The classic case is trying to time the first five people across the finish line of the race. You need a memory in your stopwatch for this, and higher-end stop-watches offer this functionality. The first time I saw this functionality, it was in 1996 in a wristwatch that could store 100 lap times.
The D600 Variation
Now let’s look at the D600. It has (only!) two buttons.
One is Reset. The other is Start-Lap-Lap-Lap-Stop.
The running timer is displayed at the top. Each time you press a lap button, it displays the lap time on a separate line. (Wow! Just like a high-end stopwatch!)
When you you press the stop button (e.g. the fourth lap) it displays the final time both at the top and at the bottom. (So, despite the fact that there is room on the screen for five times, it only shows four.)
So, this functionality is absolutely perfect for timing the first four people across the finish line.
However, it can’t time five people across the finish line, let alone the 100 that could be done ten years ago. It can’t handle the more leisurely ten laps of the oval, which the basic two-button stopwatches could. Even worse, it can’t handle anything that is interrupted.
In my case, I was timing a rehearsal, when it was interrupted - twice. The fancy-pants D600 stopwatch failed me in this simple task.
Single-tasking
A completely unrelated misfeature is that you cannot use the phone for any other function while you are using the stopwatch. Leaving that mode will quietly reset the stopwatch. So be careful not to make any phone calls while you are timing how much you are using the phone… err…
PC-Based Applications
The software that comes with the phone is called Samsung PC Studio 3. Overall, it was the most disappointing part of the package.
I have yet to look at the third-party alternatives, but I will be doing that soon - this software is so broken.
Samsung PC Studio 3 successfully upgraded itself from the web, which was nice. It looks very swish, if that is what you consider important.
It took a few tries to install and it has crashed a few times in the first session.
The physical interface is slow. I haven’t timed it, but the MP3 upload isn’t that much faster than 1x! To upload a 30 minute podcast took on the order of 30 minutes!
The sync program can’t handle multiple Outlook profiles. It assumes the current profile is the one it should use.
The sync program can’t do an ongoing sync, so it remains up-to-date when it plugs in. I haven’t seen any sign of an automatic trigger either; whenever I plug this phone in, start synching.
Repeatedly, when I configure it to synch in one direction only, it elects to synch in the other direction. Repeatedly, it has found the need to re-synch untouched contacts or appointments back to the original source, leading to duplicates. Sometimes this problem recurrs, and gets fixed for a while by running a full-synch.
The model used to port calendar entries is so bad, I wrote a whole article on calendar synching problems alone.
It won’t give access to the progress log until it has completed.
It frequently aborts the synchronization and reboots the phone. The GUI displays “Synchronization Failed.”, and then in Log View it explains it in more detail so I know how to fix it: “Synch failed”
Sometimes it gives a summary saying “9 contacts failed”, but in the detail it says “0 failed”.
I have contacts for whom I don’t have telephone number or email address info (e.g. I have postal addresses). I don’t really need them cluttering my phone; at least I would like the option.
I have contacts with no first or last name - e.g. companies. They get displayed as “No name”, followed by their telephone number. That’s not useful!
If I elect to cancel the transfer, it takes tens of seconds to complete. Cancelling an operation should always be fast.
Outlook sometimes gets confused, saying “Out of Resources” when I try to open a window when the Sync is complete but the software is still running in the background.
There have been some patches to the software, so some of these issues may be fixed, but not all.
Memory
My initial thought was I would need to buy more memory almost immediately.
Then I discovered I was surviving happily within the limits of the built-in memory.
Then, I had another look at the “TransFlash Adapter”, about a week-and-a-half after I bought the phone. It is a little piece of plastic, included in the both that adapters some sort of memory card to some other sort of memory card. I wondered why it was included, and when I looked more closely, I realised that there was teensy-tiny memory card slid up inside the adapter. I slid it out and found I owned a 64MB memory card for my phone. Woo hoo, but how embarassment to miss it!
With the memory card, the phone can act as a USB stick, and runs much faster than the file-transfer to onboard memory.
Note: The hard limits to appointments and contacts, despite spare memory, is a serious issue for me. I am sitting at 55% capacity for contacts, and almost 90% capacity for appointments, while at less than 40% of overall memory capacity.
Missing Features
No voice-recognition to dial numbers. I definitely don’t care. I had this and never used it.
It won’t display which tower you are currently talking to. Useless information, but I kind of miss it!
If there is a “flight mode” - to let me listen to MP3s while on a plane - I certainly haven’t found it yet.
Bugs
After scrolling quickly through the contact list, you sometimes see the same contact appear two or three times - the refresh hasn’t worked properly.
Some non-recurring meetings have the recurring icon appear in the Day view.
Java writers complain that it is hard to write cross-platform applications due to incompatibilities, so consider buying a more popular model if you want to run working software.
Comment by Alastair on March 31, 2006
Julian, you are a blogging *machine*. Or maybe I’m just incredibly disorganised. You produced an excellent review of your new phone in, what, a day or so? I’ve been sitting on my Nokia N70 review (not literally of course) for months now, and it’s almost as long as yours. I have to get my act together it seems.
The D600 sounds like a *pretty* good phone but to be honest I think the N70 is going to be more suitable for me. Downloading MP3s at 1x speed? No uploading of software from the PC? Automagical connections to the wireless internet? They all sound like deal-breakers for me.
Also you may be able to get the cell info display by looking in preferences. Unless you’re on a 3G network that is. (which I guess you won’t be because this isn’t a 3G phone … ?)
Comment by Chris on March 31, 2006
No crop? No speakerphone? No sort by surname?
In the search for compromise it sounds like they sorted by priority and ditched the most important features.
Any comment on audio quality?
Comment by Julian on March 31, 2006
Alastair,
I really need to time it to confirm this. It’s probably really 4x, but it is definitely slow.
I wonder if Samsung have an app for sale somewhere that will do this for only $US79.95. The unofficial ways are horrible but feasible.
Almost certainly user error; I have updated the article with my latest theory of which prominent button I must have accidentally pressed. I would prefer the WAP “Internet” was password-protectable, like the other call types are.
I can’t rule it out, however I have looked extensively.
Comment by Julian on March 31, 2006
Turns out there is a speakerphone. Article corrected. Sorry for misleading you.
Sort by surname isn’t that critical. I can live without it. Unless, of course, I am are trying to find someone with a common first name. Let me pick a totally random example: If I am searching for someone called Chris, I have 14 people in my contact list with that first name (including Christopher, Christian, Christine, Christina, etc.)
Article updated, but not much to say.
Comment by Julian on April 10, 2006
Stop Press: Sorry. I was wrong again. Sorting by surname is possible on the phone. Page updated to reflect this.
Comment by Julian on April 10, 2006
Depending on the compression rate, it is around 4.5x. I think that’s “on the order of” 1x, so I am not too apologetic to Samsung here.
Comment by Ang Chu on April 18, 2006
Thanks to Julian’s review. I recently bought a Samsung Z510 which has the same outlook sync problem as Julian has described in the review. The recurrent meeting Outlook sync prolem along with various software bugs is a common one for almost all the Samsung phones (ie Z500). This has been a known problem for quite a long time. I just wonder how long is going to take for Samsung to fix the problem (the PC studio software).
Comment by cassie on April 21, 2006
Hey, Julian, I just read some info on this phone (can you tell I have just been travelling for 4.5hrs with nothing to occupy my mind). The page lists some of the features then suggests “At last, a phone that’s as ambitious as you are.” I think this phone is not as ambitious as you. (Is a phone even capable of being ambitious by the way?)
Comment by Mark on April 22, 2006
Greetings. I am an owner of the D600, and I have noticed a possible mistake in your assessment. In your “bugs” section you mention a screen refresh problem in the contacts list. I am under the impression that there is no such problem. It is probably an ACTUAL multiplicity of entries. The multiplication of entries occurs when you use the “copy to phone” function in the contact list settings. It copies all of your contacts from the SIM card to the phone. The problem is that it doesn’t know whether you’ve done it before or not, so it copies all of them, each time, no matter what. In other words, if you run it twice, you will end up with three entries for each single entry you had before. Even if this is not the issue, it is perhaps useful information.
Comment by Julian on April 22, 2006
Thanks for your suggestion (and warning), Mark.
I think you are describing the “Phone Editor” function - which is a little contact manager built especially for this phone. I don’t use that, because I use Outlook to manage my contacts.
I have certainly had similar problems to the ones you are describing. I have got used to deleting duplicates. So used to it that it is dangerous!
In fact I noticed earlier this week that I was missing over 200 contacts from my list. I strongly suspect that this was caused by me thinking I had duplicates and deleting them (normally I sort by last modified date, and delete them as a swathe).
One of my tasks this weekend is to restore the missing details from my last backup a couple of months ago, and hope I haven’t lost any other changes I can’t reconstruct.
So coming back to your suggestion, I can confirm that the problem was occuring even though I didn’t have duplicates. When I encountered the bug symptoms, they could be solved by scrolling down one page, and then repeatedly scrolling up one line.
Comment by Julian on April 22, 2006
The phone completely failed an important test, but I don’t know the cause yet so I don’t know how to write it up in the article above.
I went travelling with the phone for four days, half-expecting the battery would last the entire time, but packing the USB-cable to phone adapter just in case it didn’t.
The battery didn’t even last 2 days, so I scrounged access to a PC and plugged the phone into the USB port. I checked that it said “charging” and I left it there. I came back after a few hours to find the phone wasn’t charged at all. It was dead - right in the middle of my trip when I really needed it and didn’t have much opportunity to get it fixed. I tried on a few more computers, but it wouldn’t charge.
I took it home and plugged it into the mains-adapter charger. Worked perfectly. Maybe it is the USB cable? But I tried with the USB cable. Works perfectly.
Conjecture 1: USB cable has lousy intermittent connection.
Conjecture 2: USB cable can only be used to “top-up”, not charge from nothing.
Conjecture 3: Computer must have driver software installed fror the phone to be able to negotiate a power-source from the USB cable.
None of these conjectures exactly matches the symptoms so I am not sure what or who to blame. What I do know is that I was cursing Samsung while trying to organise meetings in a foreign city with access to a mobile phone.
Comment by Mark UK on April 26, 2006
Julian, I’ve found that unless the USB drivers for the phone were installed on the PC, the phone would not charge via the USB cable. I did note though that the full PC Suite doesn’t need to be installed.
Comment by Julian on April 29, 2006
Mark,
Thanks for clearing that up. I have now updated the article with this warning.
My surprise here is that, when it was first plugged in - via USB to a fresh PC - the phone claimed to be charging. That was very misleading/confusing.
Comment by Andrew on May 8, 2006
Hi this is a great review, Just a pitty i read it after buying a D600 for my wife. I think i would still buy one having read it. One feature i can’t find is, when the phone is all shut up and there is nothing happening I have heard that you can have a screen saver which displays the date and time it also displays the presence of any new texts etc. do you know how to activate the screen saver.
Comment by Julian on May 9, 2006
Andrew,
Thanks for your kind words. I hope your wife finds the D600 suitable - I don’t want to make it sound like the D600 is a bad phone - it depends on her needs and priorities.
Just to make sure I have your question clear, I think you are looking for a feature that would display some status information on the screen, including the current time and the number of missed calls or new messages, etc., while the phone is in the standby state.
No, I haven’t found any such function, despite searching for it. I would find it very useful.
I do not carry a watch, and with my old bottom-of-the-line Nokia I could always see the current time. With the D600, I need to press a button to see the current time. I have seen another brand of phone that flashes the information intermittently, which means you have to hold the (closed) phone for a few seconds before you can see the time.
Comment by Martin on May 10, 2006
Hi I’ve just got myself a D600 and concur with most of what you’ve said. So far, I think the goods outweigh the bads, but Samsung really need to pay more attention to the finer details. And, they should be publicly flogged for the awful software; the duplicating whilst synching problem is a huge turn-off for business users.
In respect of the last comment however, you can get a time and notification display whilst the phone is shut by pressing and holding the volume rocker for a second or so.
HTH
Comment by Julian on May 11, 2006
Martin,
Wow, I hadn’t found that feature. I checked, and it is described in the manual under the volume rocker description as:
It does more than that, displaying the time in a very large font, and also displaying the date, number of calls missed, (presumably) number of messages waiting and the signal strength.
This display is still only for a limited period, so it is remains clumsy as a watch replacement. (It is as though Samsung are harking back to early digital watches that required you to press a button for the LED to display the time.)
You may find it faster just to hit any button on the front of the phone - it’s a different layout, but includes all the same information.
Comment by uhihiufh on May 16, 2006
Get a life geeks
Comment by Julian on May 18, 2006
Let’s go through the response options here.
Option 1: Quietly delete the flame as spam.
Nah, lacks integrity, street-cred and quick reflexes - I should have deleted it immediately if I wanted to do that. I guess that’s another vote for the grace period for comments feature idea.
Option 2: Escalate with standard “Get a life” riposte.
That is, draw attention to the fact that someone who has time to make these sort of comments clearly has less of a life that someone who contributes to a serious blog discussion. Pointing out the delay in responding because I have a life and have been too busy would earn extra points.
Nah, this just brings the conversation down to the troller’s level.
Option 3: Laugh it off with an ad hominem attack.
For example, I could joke that Samsung have obviously found the site, and have sent in a PR stooge to try to diffuse the situation.
Maybe, but stooping too low again.
Option 4: Co-opt the slur to disarm it.
For example, I could laughingly agree that I am a doupleplus geek who needs a life.
Not a bad tactic, but can I do better?
Option 5: Just ignore it.
Yeah, that sounds like the best plan to me. Instead of bothering to respond, I will update the article to talk about my disappointment with the D600 stopwatch function.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on May 18, 2006
Reminds me of one of the few instances of Larry Wall flaming someone.
Comment by DaveL on May 25, 2006
Battery life and accidental browsing can easily be solved.
Initially, my D600 had about 120hrs standby with moderate use. When I installed the WAP service, that dropped to about 24hrs. Confirmed that it wasn’t the battery failing by connecting it to a 250mA load. It lasted >3.5hrs so still had the rated 950mAhr capacity.
Went into Browser:Current Profile and selected one of the empty profiles.
Standby back up to 120hrs, cannot browse even deliberately. Should I need to browse I just have to reselect my network’s profile.
Hope this helps
Dave
Comment by Julian on May 29, 2006
Dave,
That is a fantastic tip, and one that I have immediately adopted.
I was accidentally connecting to WAP at least once a week. No more!
Thank you.
Comment by aman on June 7, 2006
how do u turn a d600 on wer frm if u knw plz add me on amandeepkd
thnx im bit thick u see
Comment by Julian on June 8, 2006
Aman,
You have been the unfortunate victim of some terrible timing.
You see, just before I read your question, I read esr’s How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.
When I saw the number of the guidelines you had managed to violate in less than two lines of text, I was laughing so hard I didn’t have time to work out what you were asking.
Good luck with your problem and feel free to try asking again, after reading that guide.
Comment by James Foote USA on June 22, 2006
I Have a D600, bought it for the MP3 and kool slider ability. The mic works great, the sound is good. I hate the fact that when the battery is going to die it continually turns the LCD on and plays a tone every 60seconds… its like they want to force it dead. I recently took a trip to san diego, I may have left my main charger there. I got home and couldnt find it, so opted for using the USB cable, drivers were already installed, and i have upload mp3’s in the past to it. It said charging, and about 10 minutes later heard a beep, and then nothing. Hopefully I can find a charger for it.
Jim
Comment by Simon on June 27, 2006
I’ve had the D600 for a couple of months & both love and hate it. I also wish that I had read this blog before purchasing. Regarding the synchronisation issue and duplication of calendar and contact items, I’ve found a way around this. I only ever sync PC to phone & monitor the sync to make sure that it doesn’t go the other way around. When it does start to do it I do a full force sync from PC to phone and this seems to clear up the issue for a few weeks. Perhaps it builds up a memory (albeit incorrect ones) of sync issues from phone to PC & overrides the command to sync PC to phone - until such time as a full force sync is done and clears this.
Comment by Andrew on June 28, 2006
Does anyone know how you can put postal addresses in you D600. You say that you have done away with your PDA, what about all those postal adresses. Some people still use ’snail-mail’ Great Review though!!! my email address is andrew0007uk @ xmsg.com
Comment by Jane on June 30, 2006
I have a Samsung D600 and until yesterday I had no problems at all and was quite happy. Yesterday I set up my new laptop (Windows XP - as was the previous one), installed my Samsung PC Studio (version 3.0.0 EK1) and tried to sync my Outlook (Microsoft Office Outlook 2003) appointments. I selected the Outlook profile I wanted it to use (as I had always done on my previous laptop) and the sync started. However, with the new laptop I always receive the message “Synchronization Failed.”, and the Log View contains no useful detail. I assume that there’s a setting in Outlook that I’ve missed and would be grateful for advice. I can copy photos & my phone contacts without any trouble at all.
Thanks
Comment by Dumi on July 5, 2006
I have also had the D600 for a couple of months and am dissaponited by
1.the calendar in comparison to my previous Nokia 6230,
2.the battery life although i got an email that reads,”Hidden Battery power
Imagine your cell battery is very low, u r expecting an important call and u don’t have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a reserve battery. To activate, press the keys *3370# . Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when u charge your cell next time.
NB: Only with Nokia ”
Seeing as i don’t have a Nokia phone anymore I cannot confirm this, but does samsung have something similar or does anyone know of an alternative manufactures original battery with an extended user time?
3. I also have a problem with caller ID/ sms identification. If i capture say Tom’s # as +268 6029173[+268 being the country code],when Tom calls me, my phone will not recognise his name as existing on my phone but the sms will ID him. Vise versa applies. My Nokia did not have this “problem”,
4 While listening to MP3’s you cannot access other utilities on the phone eg phonebook/sms,
5. You cannot record a telephone conversation (you may want to record an instruction from your boss!).
Thanks
Comment by sarah brown on July 10, 2006
Hi, thanks for all of the details I found the review very good, but… I am still not sure whether this phone is for me. I only realy want to use this phone for leisure and so am not interested in the synch issues. Do you know whether there is another phone better than this for around £150? any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks x
Comment by Dan on July 16, 2006
For Cell Info:
Messages, Broadcast Message, Receive, Turn to On
Comment by Igor on July 28, 2006
I just purchased my D600 on 23rd, and only to have it arrive in the mail broken =D
Despite all of the negatives that I read from all of the forums, and reviews I really want this phone, and now I have to deal with the dealer and send it back, and have it replaced.
It did, however, come with a 128mb T-Flash card, Desktop Charger, and extra battery.
Comment by Sarah on August 8, 2006
I have no clue how to put my phone on complete silent…for incoming calls…am i dumb or is this difficult or even possible?
Comment by Monika on August 8, 2006
I was just wondering if anybody’s had their D600 shut off by itself randomly? This usually happens when I’m setting up the tone for my alarm, changing the sound settings or when trying to access my photos.
I’m scared I might’ve done something to it. I haven’t even had it for a whole week
Help?
Comment by Chris on August 8, 2006
According to the manual, you can turn off the control bar when viewing documents full-screen by pressing the # key.
Comment by Julian on August 15, 2006
Some quick replies to the comments above:
Dan: Good man! That works perfectly in Australia. I did have some problems in Europe where the “messages” displayed were meaningless. At one point, it started receiving messages that needed explicit acknowledgement; I would have to “okay” the message - but the OK button actually said BZ (if I recall correctly). Very weird.
Igor: Good luck. I hope the D600 suits your needs.
Sarah: Hold down the # button to toggle between quiet mode. See the phone options for changing between “quiet = vibrate” and “quiet = truly silent”.
Monika: I’ve not had that problem, but if I did, I’d probably be looking at the battery or battery connections as the first suspect.
Chris: Thanks! I will experiment with that next time I put a PowerPoint slide on my phone. That may be some months away
Comment by NasMobile on August 17, 2006
Great review. I have copied all contacts from my sim card to the phone. The phonebook is now displaying each contact twice - one entry for the sim card and one for the phone. Have you found a way to default either the phone or sim contacts. It is possible to see just one list (in Phonebook / Management / Memory Status / select either Phone or Sim) … but this is temporary not permanent. I want to hide the sim contacts and just see the phone contacts when I press the contacts softkey. THANKS.
Comment by iveevi on August 22, 2006
Thanx for the review!
I have another major problem with D600. It does not charge when it is switched on! (through the mains of course). It reports that it is charging , displayes the full battery in a couple of hours, but then completely discharges and goes down in a matter of several hours.
It really let me down in many critical situations. I wish I wouldn’t have bought it.
Comment by Viv on August 24, 2006
Hi, I also wish that I’d read this website before I bought my D600. Can someone please tell me how to copy the contact info. on my SIM card to the phone? Thanks.
Comment by NasMobile on August 24, 2006
Viv - to copy SIM contacts to the phone try:
Menu - Phonebook - Management - Copy all to Phone.
Comment by Matthew on September 23, 2006
I too have a D600, and I feel the good outweighs the bad.
But how do you get the cell Info to display on your phone’s main screen?
I have turned the broadcast messages on.. but they seem to be stored in the temporary folder rather than displayed on the screen!?
Any ideas?
Comment by john on September 28, 2006
more of a question than a comment, i have a somewhat naked picture of michelle bass on my phone, “yeah sad i know” but anyhoo, how do i get rid of the time an date display?
Comment by H. azimi on January 11, 2007
I have bought 15 days ago, But it has a big problem and didn’t work mor than 2 hours. it used to turn off automatically. the local agent accepted to change it by new ones but when? nobody knows.
I wish I wouldn’t have bought it.
Comment by BB7mad on January 14, 2007
i really want this phone but i have heard so many problems with it. can u get MP3 tunes on it from iTunes? is it worth it to get or shouldnt i get it?plz help
Comment by hadi on February 17, 2007
i have a problem with samsung D600 , please help to me :
when i connect my device to pc via usb cable , access to phone is possible but nothing charge process.. when i use my charger i cant turn off my cell phone , after 2 sec. automatic turn on and unable to charge. also i deactive all lock ….
Comment by randy on February 26, 2007
I’ve had one of these for about six months.
Reasons for buying it.
* Good screen. Last phone i had had a dim screen.
* PDA/Calendar function. I have a lousy memory, I used my last phones pda extensively
* mp3. I travel by public transport and this helps to pass the time.
* I don’t own a watch, I don’t see the point when you have a mobile phone.
Biggest dissapoinments with the phone.
* PDA/Calendar function. This function is shocking, underdone, so bad don’t use it. Everytime I did use i missed how much better my last phone was at this.
* mp3. Not too bad by itself, but you cannot do anything else at all when you use any function, eg, you can’t listen to music and txt at the same time. This is pathetic.
Comment by sydney on April 15, 2007
great review. i even learned a lot more about some features of the fone that i failed to discover after having a d600 for a year now and i was equally surprised that almost everyone who owns the same fone have the same problems.
i got by with the fone despite its not-so-good features so repeatedly mentioned such as the batttery life, the calendar, the unnecessary sounds, and the single-task feature, which, i agree, is down right pathetic. but my frustration lies mainly on the samsung PC studio 3 software. i cant copy certain messages from the fne to my pc. whenever i try the display “this is an EMS message. view from fone.” i found out that an ems is a message containing more than 160 characters and it is disappointing to have a such useful feature on your fone but cant simply be recognized by other devices. ive upgraded the software and searched everywhere desperate to find an answer but what i learned is that even the samsung techical support can’t help. maybe you know how to sort this out or if nothing could be done, then maybe there are other alternative softwares i could use. please help me. thanks
Comment by Adi on May 3, 2007
Can anyone tell me a workaround of copying all my contacts from phone onto the SIM card?
I know there is a direct option to copy from SIM to Phone but not the other way round.
Comment by Ian Davis on July 26, 2008
I have A D600 and think its a great phone i have had it more than 2 years now and think desite its pit falls its great. Today a big problem has accured the phone once powered on shows the sgh d600 samsung page then switchs off then around 6 ceconds later switchs back on and then just keeps repeating the same cycle over and over i hope i can get my phone fixed, I now have a Nokia N95 as well and i still prefer the D600. any suggestions would be appreciated. Ian