Samsung SGH A867 Eternity

Like many others, I use my phone for more than just calls. Lately, I've been searching for a good combination form, function, and value. Since I don't want to continue the two year contract merry-go-round with my cell carrier, I choose to look to Ebay to find my diamond in the rough. The Blackberry 8530 truly is a diamond, unfortunately its two weaknesses lead me to realize my search is not over.

Don't get me wrong, I love pretty much every aspect of this phone. The qwerty keyboard, love it. I have large hands and for many years thought the small qwerty keyboard would be too much of an obstacle, I was wrong. The App Store,love it. The number of available apps doesn't matter, the number of non-sucking apps do! The video capabilities, love it. Never thought I would be able to watch good looking video on such a small screen, again I was wrong. WiFi, love it. I'm on Sprint so all I can say is it's about time. Assignable buttons, love it, I mean it's my phone right, let me mold it the way I want! Battery life, awesome! So nice to have a smart phone that isn't stupid when it comes to power usage. Standby time does not mean drain the juice as fast as you can, this phone can hold a charge.

With all that said, there are two glaring weaknesses. For some reason, I haven't figured it out yet, Rim felt removing the camera flash was a good idea, NOT! Like all other BB's in this form factor, although you may have 3G or 4G, navigating the web on this device still sucks!!! The screen is just too small for a rich web experience. Maybe one day there will be a light, thin, slider BB that offers a qwerty keyboard, larger screen, and all the goodness of a real BB,

If these two features or rather disabilities don't bother you, then run don't walk and pick up this phone!

All the makings of a great phone but does not deliver

Anyone reviewing a phone should wait until they have had the phone for a while before reviewing it so the thrill of having a new phone will wear off and it does affect the review. Upon receipt of this phone I was very impressed with the phones features. It has a nice screen, nice touch features and has a good over all appearance. The problem is the actual communication performance is very poor in making calls. The phone performs very poorly during calls as well. This problem exists in the same areas that my previous phone never had trouble. I have owned many different phones in the last 20 years. I have never had so many dropped calls in 20 years as I have had in the last month on this phone. This is in the same areas in which my previous two phones did well. I will be replacing this phone in less than 6 months. I would not buy again.
Other things I did not like:
1) Did not like the fact that it locks itself when you turn on speaker phone. No setting to turn this off. Many times I have to dial into automated systems and dial codes to access information. Phone blocks this and I have to unlock it again. This feature made me angry.
2) No shortcut on main screen for texting. This is even though you have calendar, calculator, bluetooth, event notifier and other shortcuts on screen yet no text??!!
3) Do not like the constant reminder of missed calls. Even when you acknowledge missed calls the phone will not stop notifying you (all day long about 5 minutes apart) until you delete the missed calls in your received folder.
4) Texting allows use of recent contacts but no use of most popular texting contacts. In other words you have to find people you commonly text by scrolling in your contacts if you have texted someone else recently.
5) Other main shortcuts on widget screen are not used near enough to warrant placement on main screen. (You can remove them via a settings page but you cannot add texting or add game shortcut!).
6) Sometimes you can have two bars and still cannot get text messages to go through. Strange....Strange... Sometimes you can have 3 bars and still get failed calls.
7) When you turn the phone sideways the pictures and text that you are writing will change from horz to vert postions but when you scroll contacts the phone leaves them sideways forcing you to turn the phone back vertical. It also does this with incoming messages. It will not turn them for you to read.
Things I did like:
1) Screen and pictures on screen.
2) Playback of video was good. Sound recording quality seems good.
3) Picture handling and autorotation of pictures per orientation of phone.

To sum it up this phones seems to be designed to be a great phone but was shipped before making revisions to actually make it a great phone. Doubt anyone used it long enough to make revisions. On a scale of 1-10 I give this phone a 3. Worst being dropped calls, best being picture handling.

Does not work with T-mobile's 3G

This phone's touch screen is really responsive. Typing on the QWERTY keyboard is easy. I love the potential it has. I was not able to use any of the features because I have T-Mobile and this phone does not work with T-Mobile's 3G network (confirmed by their customer service). Because of this, I never activated the web features on it before returning it.
I love that it has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

This would be a great phone if you had AT&T or another provider that had a compatible 3G network.

Some what dissapointed in Samsung SGH Eternity A867

I read the reviews and it seemed like a pretty good step up from my Samsung Blackjack II. I like the features and the icons on the screen. The internet is not the fastest and needs a larger screen to view properly. Can't complain too much as I have an unlimited data plan from AT&T since this is not a smart phone. The first one I received had really poor reception compared to my Blackjack and I sent it back. The next one wasn't much better and the answer button wouldn't work. Had to send it back too. I should just get a refund but will try one more time since I don't want a long term contract. The software that is suppose to work, doesn't. I have tried installing on Windows 7 32 bit and 64 bit with no luck. I then installed on Windows XP and still no luck. It just won't recognize my phone and this sucks. If I can get one that works I think I will like it. It is a good starter phone with touch screen and I don't want to be too negative until I get a chance to use it some.

Samsung SGH A867 Eternity

This phone is very user friendly and has all the bells and whistles, should you want them. Call quality is great. Battery life is very good. The speaker phone clarity is not excellent, but is good. Everything else is great. There are lots and lots of accessories that you can get for this phone too - like screen guards and many, many cases to fit like a glove (you can change the color of this phone easily by using these), both hard and soft. So, this phone can be fully protected without having to actually encompass it in a regular "camera style" case. The first criterium that I used to find a phone was its SAR rating. This phone ranks second on the lowest emissions rating list! This and all the rest of the goodies it has makes this phone an excellent choice!