Samsung Exclaim SPH-M550 Review

UI, Phonebook and Organizer:

The Samsung Exclaim SPH-M550 runs Sprint’s One Click UI, which was debuted last October with the Rant.  We gave a full rundown at the time, and still enjoy it very much.  As far as carrier UIs go, this one is by far the best.  Unique to the Exclaim is a twitter tile, which allows for easy tweeting from your homescreen.  MySpace and Facebook also have preloaded tiles, though they have been available to add on other One Click phones.  The main menu has the familiar 12 icon layout that most Sprint phones feature at this point, nothing new to report.



Samsung’s phonebook is pretty average.  It allows for everything you’d expect to see, including IM names and memos, but nothing more.  As the line between smart and dumbphones continue to blur we would have much preferred to see some more detail available, as with the Motorola contact layout which allows you to add more personal information such as birthdays and addresses.  Nuance takes care of the voice dialing.




Other features remain standard as well.  The user is given a basic personal calendar, and exchange calendars are supported by the Sprint Mobile Email program.  The latter feature is very cool, but we just don’t see many people who have an Exchange account using a phone like the Exclaim.   Other basic amenities include an alarm, calculator, world clock, memo pad and voice memos.





Messaging and Multimedia:

Again, everything is pretty much the same here.  Text messaging is threaded so the user sees conversations in their inbox, not messages.  The included IM client supports AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger.  Sprint Mobile Email is one of the better email clients we’ve seen for basic phones.  It supports most everything you can throw at it, including Exchange, but unfortunately uses POP instead of IMAP.

As an EVDO phone the Exclaim features all of Sprint’s multimedia offerings; Sprint TV, Radio and Music Store.  With support of 16GB microSD cards it acts as a decent on the go mp3 player, though we don’t think it will be replacing many iPods.  The Rant’s 2 megapixel camera performed well for what it was, and the Exclaim does the same. Colors were a bit muted, but detail was good for a mid-range phone.