Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung U600 Sim Free Mobile Phone

This fone is great. The sound is great from the music player and the sound volume is great. Easy to use music player and you can rename the songs to your liking.

Text messaging is brill, option of predictive text capitals and normal texting all with the touch of a button. Works like magic.

Touch keys brilliant- despite rumours that it is awfull. As you can alter the sensitivity from the slight touch of a finger to a thump of a finger, you can alter it to your liking.

Also, you can change an unbelivable amount of settings so that you can create your own masterpiece, shaped to your command.

In addition, this phone looks gorgous. Absolutely beautiful. You cannot argue with that unless you have a strange taste of beauty.

Overall, this is a great phone and is reccommended to everyone who who requires a reasonably priced, higgh tech good looking phone.

I bought this phone last January (2008). Firstly i must say i love Samsung products, they really do create good looking items. However, one shouldn't judge by looks like i did.
I originally liked the style of this phone and of course i still do, it was one of the thinnest slide phones in the world at it's release. On an overall look at the phone it is nicely designed, there are 4 touch buttons which can take some getting use too and can get a tad annoying when you first use them. The number pad, while looks good appears cheaply made, originally i got a clicking sound from pressing certain numbers and buttons not reacting how they should, i then basically pressed my hand on them hard and this cured the problem. But i shouldnt have to fix a brand new product with force...

Secondly is the battery, the phone comes with what is quite frankly a very poor battery. The charge can last a fair few days, but i warn you if you go camping like i do, this phone isn't for you. The coldness will kill the battery overnight. It also can't cope with the extras on the phone such as games, camera and even the bright torch (even this is flawed, there doesnt seem to be an option to choose how long you can keep this on for, it just goes off after 20-30 seconds, and ive lost count the number of times the phone has rung someone while i'm using the torch!) I found myself buying a second battery which was just as worse, but hey it's a backup. After a 8 months of use the screen had also come up with it's fair share of scratches, i find this impossible when i keep it in a phone sock with cloths over the front, but it still manages to get more scratched!

The camera on this phone is a waste of time. There is too much of a delay on it to get any decent pictures, i have never been one to use my phone for taking images but it is a handy feature to have. On this phone it isn't. When you think you have got a good picture, you go into the image and find its just a blurred mess because of the pointless delay.

Although this may be a problem on my end, i did find when unplugging the phone from my pc, it forced my internet to disconnect, which wont re-connect till i restart the pc.

I don't want to end this review on mostly negatives, it is a nice looking phone, has a fantastic speaker for mp3's and videos, a good size screen and the likes of simple menus. Just in future, can the overall look of the phone be sorted after the technical stuff has been properly tested?

So I've had the U600 for a good few months now and I'm ready to share some of my thoughts on this phone. It's good, but not great. Bottom line is I doubt I'll be buying a Samsung phone again though, but I'll get to the reasons for that later. It's not that I've had any major issues with it, more like lots of small ones.

I'll start with the good stuff. The U600 is attractive, slim and lightweight and slips easily into the pocket, going largely unnoticed once there. The screen is big and bright and the resolution and contrast are excellent. Viewing photos and videos on it is a pleasure. The operating system/ user interface is, in my opinion, very good, but I didn't find it as intuitive as the Nokias I've had in the past. The MP3 player is good, if rather slow to respond, and transferring music from my PC using Windows Media Player's 'Sync' option was a simple and painless operation. Built in speaker is a bonus as I like to potter around the house with it playing away. The camera has plenty of good functions but is spoiled by the deadly slow response time between pressing the button and the photo being taken. The quality of the photos is really good in good lighting conditions, and the macro mode works well. Also the photo editing software is good fun to use.

The bad? The build quality is suspect. I found that when the slider is closed and the main circular button is being used, the casing moves and 'squeaks' slightly. When the slider is open and the keypad is being used there is also some movement between the two parts of the casing giving the impression that it's not all that robust. The keypad itself is an abomination, made of a single piece of cheap plastic that also flexes and squeaks quite horribly. I found it was far too easy to press an adjacent key accidentally and I like to think I'm not all that cack-handed. As you can imagine, typing texts is no fun. The camera, as I mentioned before, is very slow to take pictures. Not only that, but if your subject is moving, at all, then the photo will come out blurred. This was a big disappointment to me as I wanted to use it to take family snaps, and having 3 small children who rarely sit still for more than a second means that, if I'm lucky, 1 in 10 photos I take of them is useable. The touch sensitive keys are pretty irritating; all too often I find myself cursing them because I've accidentally brushed them with my finger while trying to do something else. I do it less and less over time, but you shouldn't really have to be making a conscious effort not to touch them if you know what I mean. The reception on this phone is really poor but I guess that is the fault of the service provider and not the phone (switched from Vodaphone to Virgin btw). The earphones are a terrible fit, that is to say they don't fit at all. Maybe I have mutant ears or something, but if I try to move my head with the phones in, they instantly pop out. The sound quality is ok though I suppose (as long as you stay utterly motionless!). Most annoying that they don't just use a 3.5mm jack so you can use your preferred ear/ headphones. You have to buy a separate adapter if want to use your own. Oh yes, and the battery life sucks.

Seems an obvious thing to say, but I really wanted to like this phone, and for the most part I do. However, for me the cons outweigh the pros so I can't really recommend it.

I've had this since Christmas 2008, and was drawn by the aesthetics of the sleek lines and functionality of synchronization with a PC for calendars etc. Other than that, I didn't ask for much more from a phone.

Please note: I've just read this review and it all seems negative. It's not that bad really (I have sent phones back before now but still have this one!) I just want people to know some of the downsides that you can't tell from just reading specifications.

I have to admit the first week was a test of patience with the touch-sensitive keys : numerous attempts to write text messages were cancelled while inadvertently catching the wrong bit of the screen (pressing the Back button rather than Delete thus losing the half-written text message - FOUR TIMES I TRIED IT ONCE) but I'm getting used to it. This U600-i is the improvement on the U600 (which is still found on some sites so beware) and has a vibration feedback on the touch-keys, so you have a little more chance of knowing when you've pressed them! I believe the G-600 has "proper" keys but is a bit more money.

I agree with some other reviews that the sleekness can get in the way of function at times, as there's not a lot of phone to hang on to whilst pressing the number/texting keys so texting can still be difficult for larger fingers.

These things aside, in general use the phone works very well, with decent volume for talking and loudspeaker. Menus are easy to handle once you're used to it (never had a Samsung before).

I can't comment on the music player as I've not plugged the earphones in, mainly because I don't need it. Incidentally, why can't these manufacturers make them with standard headphone sockets so we can plug another (better) pair of headphones in?

Sorry, but another negative : BATTERY!! Believe the other reviews (apart from some that say it's okay) - I've had a Sony K750i and a Nokia 6100 before it and they easily lasted 2 to 3 times longer between charges. I don't use it a great deal but am lucky to get 3 days out of it before it tells me it needs charging, or worst still just runs out and goes off! I do have Bluetooth turned on, but so did my SE K750 without any problems. If you don't mind having your charger at hand, it not too bad.

The camera, while producing some decent photographs, can take a while to initialise and take a photo. Don't expect to just press the camera button then take a photo : it's a good 5-10 seconds before it starts up. If you wait for the autofocus to lock on you could be waiting another 5-10, but the central "i" button tends to be good for a quick grab shot.

Oh, another little annoyance - Samsung decided on this one that nobody wants their phone to vibrate AND make a sound when you get a text - it's either one or the other. It can do this for incoming calls and alarms, but not texts! Why? All very well having it tucked away in your jeans while you're out, but you can't tell if you get an SMS if it's noisy.

All in all, the phone is great if you have small fingers, small pockets, a bit of patience for texting and taking photos!

Whilst this may look stylish, and the large screen and keypad are a plus point, as many others point out the screen breaks too easily. Are mobile phones really not designed to stand up to being put in your pocket. Unless you get it from a very reputable supplier they won't honour the warranty in these cases. It is not economical to repair so buy a cheaper, sturdier model.