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At first glance, the Samsung Delve is a sharp phone with many features that make it instantly attractive. On the surface, it's a classy touchscreen sans a smartphone OS that boasts a 2MP camera/bluetooth/EVDO and an external memory card slot. As an experienced cell phone technician, I often find that I enjoy a phone more as I learn more about its features. Sometimes even months into using a phone I will learn something new about it that makes me like it more. Unfortunately, with every new feature I learn about the Delve, I find a significant drawback that is coupled with it. Examples: Camera: The camera is decent and adjusts to lighting adequately, the touch interface for the camera is useful but I often found it constantly toggling me between picture and video mode if I strayed my finger accidentally. Contacts: The address book has a 500 contact capacity but is ultra clunky to surf through with the touchscreen. I would flick my finger up or down to surf through the names only to miss the one I wanted. Once I found the name I wanted I often hit the name above or below it and missed it. Consequently, hitting the back button resets you to the top of the contacts so that you can start all over again. Using the quickfinder above is easier but still annoying when you can only see two available names at a time, and my thumb often selects the wrong one. Video: The video player coupled with the nice screen makes for a great viewing experience that is not only sharp but also plays back audio nicely. My favorite feature is the auto-stretch button that takes a 4:3 cut and makes it 16:9 and completely fill the screen, this fixed my video encoding issues when trying to put movies on the memory card. Alas, the seek feature is very flawed. There is no way to touch on the seek bar to navigate to that spot in the video, you can only use the fast forward button. The fast forward is slow and if you press it incorrectly you will jump to the next video and it will completely reset your position. There is no timestamp feature that remembers where you left the video, which becomes absurdly annoying when a text or a call comes in and auto-exits your movie, leaving you no recourse but to start all over again. MP3 Player: The included music player supports the standard formats and took my mp3s without complaining. The external speaker is poor at high volumes but the music is adequate with headphones. Where the music player fails is once again in navigation. Apply all the headaches of trying to find a contact and it's the same with finding an artist or song. More often than not I hit the wrong song, artist, or album and it completely resets me whenever I go back. Rinse, repeat, and this becomes very frustrating trying to play your music. Solution: Use a ton of pre-made playlists. Internet/Bluetooth: The EVDO is nice and I tethered the phone to my laptop via the bluetooth inside of five minutes and was surfing the web. EVDO network issues aside, the internet worked fine but the phone's included HTML browser is crippled by the large font. Viewing a page on eBay involves looking at 5% of the actual page at any one time and you have to constantly twitch your thumb from side to side and up and down just to read a two-line description. I'm out of text, but I hope this review helps shed some light on these features. Ratings: Calls: 8/10 Texting: 6/10 Music: 3/10 Video: 7/10 Camera: 8/10 Contacts: 2/10 OS Speed: 4/10 Final Delve Rating: 5 of 10.Read full review
I like the phone because its slick looking and the widgets as there called on the phone are hideable in a tab menu. Everything is very easy access and it makes the phone very nice. The texting on the phone is the bad part. If you are a person who texts alot i would not suggest getting this phone. The on screen keyboard is almost impossible to type on(unless you have very small fingers. I bought this phone because i wanted a touch screen phone and this was the best one out there. I also bought it off ebay so i wouldnt have to pay for the smart plan at alltel. one of my more ingenius ideas i think.
I like most that the phone is lightweight and fast. The menus are easy to navigate and the phone shifts between screens quickly and smoothly. I have the next model, the 850, as well and have been very pleased with it. That's what prompted me to buy this previous model. I bought it for a family member and they love it. The music player is great, the sound on the phone is good, surprisingly so for a unit in this price range and it's browser is super fast. I have smart phones too and this one actually is better to check email on because it loads quicker and has an app from U.S. Cellular for email that allows you to set up up to six email accounts. I can check all six accounts faster on this phone than I can log in to my accounts separately on my computer. So much time saved over the course of a day! I can also use it with any mobile site that I've tried out and a lot of non-mobile sites as well with the zoom feature. The zoom is really easy to use, only requiring me to tap and hold on the screen and slide my finger up or down for zoom in and out...no problem. It has multiple alarms and you can set them for different days of the week. It's nice to set a workday alarm and have a couple available for other things too. The calendar is easy to use and that makes me feel confident that I could set my appointments and not worry that I won't get a reminder because I know it was set correctly. Looks pretty sharp too and is light as can be. I hate a heavy, clunky phone and this one is nice. We've never had a problem with it and I have a friend who's been using his since it came out and no problems for him either. All around, just a great phone. I recommend it to anyone who wants a phone that has a lot of the sophisticated convenience features of a smart phone without the uneccessary ones or the high cost of a smart phone plan.Read full review
I have been using the Delve for about a month and its awesome! Great camera and the music and video play back is amazing. I love the touch wiz interface it makes viewing your media quick. Calls and battery life were great the only thing I don't like is the lack of an accelerometer but web browsing was quick and has full screen support overall great phone!
I love this phone! It has touchscreen and is very easy to use. It has an excellent camera for capturing pictures and it also has a camcorder feature. There isnt much that you cant do on this phone.
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