Samsung SCH-U540 User Reviews

This phone has been through soooo much in the last year. I've practically tried to break it. I even played a one hour soccer game in the hallways after school with my friends using this phone as the ball. I've dropped it so much is not even funny. ive dropped it in water where its sat for at least a minute and its never broken. The only thing that happens is that the wallpaper sets back to the default check mark when its dropped or thrown. the paint on mine has completely scratched off and it exposes the white shell, it looks terrible, but you open it up and it works totally fine! sure its not the qwerty phone i wanted and the cameras terrible but this is a good, reliable phone with great battery life and it just wont break.

Admittedly it's not an  IPhone, but for what it is, its top notch. It doesnt have all the bells and whistles as some other phones out there, but it has all the basics covered and it works well. It's light, slim and easy to carry, so as a phone it's great. Texting is pretty easy on it and it has 50 message inbox and auto erase. It can get pretty loud if you want it too (i.e. alarm/ringer) and it also can be used as a pretty nice mp3 player if you get the mp3 package. I do wish the battery would last a bit longer but other than that it's a good phone. Also it's durable, mine has in the floor on more than a few occasions and keeps on chugging.

All in all, a good phone. For us, the GPS is worth the price of admission and outweighs many cons. We use it constantly, and find it totally eliminates needing an in-car Garmin, or similar. I need the Bluetooth on to hear the voice commands in my loud diesel truck, but the system has blasted me through the worst San Fransisco and LA has to offer for road navigating.
Four months with 5-day a week usage on two phones (both the wife and I) the alarm clock has failed once.
Music will not play on mono Bluetooth earpiece (needs stereo headphone setup). Proprietory cable and PC sync is really clunky.
Front cover needs display to stay on.
Frequent echo-ey reception, but that's a problem with the service not the phone.
Again, try the GPS, you'll throw your other nav systems away.

I hear a lot of people who complain about this phone say "it just doesn't have all the features my (insert much more expensive phone name here) does". It's not supposed to. This phone offers most of the features any 3G phone should at a cost that won't leave you unable to pay next month's bill. The features are plenty and while most of them are decent, none of them are excellent. The mp3 playback for instance isn't going to be as good as your iPod. The camera quality isn't going to compare to your Olympus hi-res digital. If it did do all these things, this phone would cost A LOT more than it does. It does however do all these things at an acceptable level, especially for someone who wants a phone they can afford and for someone who wants the features but doesn't expect it to do everything and walk the dog too. As for the design it's better than many more expensive phones I've owned but still has it's quirks. I've had no problems with button use with the exception of the menu button but then I have that same problem with every Samsung and other phones that has the same navigation button setup. You can nitpick it do death if you want but the bottom line is that it's good for anyone looking for a practical,affordable, and reliable phone with a few extra features.

Pros:
-Super thin
-Light
-Durable (been dropped a few times)
-Easy to open right away
-big screen
-good camera
-can view videos full screen
-videos can be as long as memory allows
-takes mirco sd cards
-Great sized keys
-cool number font effects
-bright colors
-different themes and menus to choose from.
-its loud when it rings
-great 50 dollar price with 2 year contract.
-cool camera color effects
-can set to say things out loud to you.
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Cons
-i don't use it for music, so sometimes the touch buttons on the outside beep in my pocket, but there is a lock key, but then you can view the time on the outside screen real quick without holding down lock key.
-when you zoom using the camera it makes a sound like weapons charging that is amazingly loud and the only way to turn it off that ive found is turning the sound off for the whole phone.
-when it vibrates its not as strong as it could be.


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All in all great phone that i reccomend!!

ps. phone comes with two weeks of free vcast, but other than that don't buy it, because all the music videos cost alot extra, and theres not much else there.

Ok.. at first glance, this phone looked very nice. Slim design, and when you open it - a cool layout of the buttons.

When you own it, however, the little things just pick at you and pick at you until one day u snap the phone backwards in half (which is what i did). First of all, although i liked the style of the buttons, i found it VERY HARD TO TEXT WITH. I often found myself retyping things over and over because either i pressed the adjacent buttons as well as the one i was trying to press, or i didnt press it hard enough to begin with. VERY ANNOYING. Not to mention i found myself starting my txts over from the beginning JUST because i got a call while txting.

Sound quality? mediocre... thats all i have to say. its not horrible but its great either. Speaker phone, on the other hand, you have to keep the volume low because at full level you will not understand his/her words clearly.

So what do i think? i think if you are the type of person who has lots of patience then go ahead and buy this phone.. you get what you pay for. me on the other hand, unfortunately my patience runs dry when it comes to inconvenient and obviously annoying defects, which is why my samsung sch-u540 ended up in the garbage.

umm. ok sure we can nitpick at all the problems or we can get over ourselves and just live with it. i do like this phone and you can turn on the front screen if you hold down the lock button for the music keys for two seconds or so. the keypad always shuts off during a call to save battery wich i do like.

I returned this phone.
1. One can’t just hit a button on the outside to look at the time, it won’t light up the display which isn’t even on, so you can’t even see it in the light. You have to open it up every time just to look at the clock.
2. I set the keypad light to be “always on” while the phone is open, but as soon as it connects to voicemail, the light goes out, so in the dark you can’t see the numbers to put in your password, or opperaate the voicemail commands.
3. When the main screen light is set to be on for 30 15 or 7 seconds, it stays on for the right amount of time, but the display itself goes out, so you can’t see what number youre talking to, how long you’ve been on, etc. On all my previous phones, the light goes out but you can still see the screen, just not as bright.
4. I couldnt get used to the buttons while text messaging or putting information in, they would either not type or type 2 of the character you want to type, because you have to hit the button hard, after tyyping a bunch of shit and looking at it and it’s all screwed up, especially if youre typing in Word…
5. Teh “Word” function of text input wouldn’t learn new words that i had sent and even had saved in messages. This sucked having to switch to “ABC” to enter names that you use all the time, every fcking time.
6. I did like that you could switch the keypad sound to sound like a xylophone.
7. I couldn’t look at a text message on the outside screen when i recieved it, like i could with other phones.
8. There were about 10 other stupid little things that i didn’t like/wasn’t used to that sucked as well.
9. I went back to LG which I shouldn’t have strayed from, and i have the VX 8700 now i think.
10. Also, the reception sucked alot of the time, where an LG (even old ones) would get better reception. and a lot of times you think you’ve lost the person on the line and you have to say “you still there?” like a jerk.

i'm going back to LG's. i had a 8100. thought i would try this Samsung. big mistake. front light does not stay on. my LG lit up like a christmas tree whei i got a call.Samsung camera has no flash, no battery full icon in front, speaker button on side too small. i could go on and on.

most phones let you know when your battery is charged. not this one. i know it takes 2 hours but i would still like a green light or something saying battery is charged

I just bought this phone a week or two ago, and I've never been happier with a phone. It's very lightweight and small, which is actually why I bought it, but it's also packed with pretty much any feature you could ever want.
I've heard a lot of people complain about the antenna and how you can't put your finger over that part of the phone, but I honestly haven't noticed any problems with that at all. It did, however, come with a sticker on it that verified this as a legitimate problem.
Either way, this is a great phone, and I would recommend it to pretty much anyone without any hesitation.

Pros: slim size, light weight, nice in-the-hand, real good-sized buttons, not expensive, good enough camera, even plays my MP3s and home movies fine without too much effort, plays videos in landscape mode

Cons: shorter battery life; no flash

Other: I use OSX, so the music and videos have to be placed manually on the microSD card. Bought at a kiosk in Costco, so a (mono) headphone, leather case, car charger came free.

finally the have the new version of the a930 the u540 has the color screen and its the only phone that i know sooo far that its a flip and you can take & record pics+videos! i love it that said also theres a blue version out i wonder if we'll ever come out with a black one built in stereo speackers gps vcast! music player what else can this phone have oh by the way its also smaller than the original a930 its really thin! i'm going to make my black! LOL !

I have not looked at the phone personally but it looks like the coolest phone ever. I really want to get it and i will break my old lg 5200 for it. I like the mp3 feature and the camera having a video camera on it. Reading the comments convinced me so much i am going to try to get my hands on one.

I've only had this phone for almost a week, but I've used it and its features enough to make an honest review of it so far.
This is a great looking phone. Very classy and sophisticated. It's very slim and sleek which makes it very comfortable to use. You hardly know it's in your pocket until you hear it ring. The keypad is excellent with big keys that make texting a snap. Watch out for the clear key when using the down directional key, though.
So far the reception has been really good. It holds a signal in my apartment where my last phone couldn't. Outside and everywhere else, the u540 holds signals without any problems.
The sound quality is excellent. No static or echoing and callers sound like they're in the next room, and everyone has said that I sound just as clear on their end as well.
The stereo speakers produce very good sound. The ringtones I put on here sound clear and even produces a little bit of bass. I haven't put any songs on it yet because I want to get a Micro SD card first. So I'm anxious to try that out.
This phone is fast when using the mobile web and uploading or sending data.
Only a couple annoyances- The battery is small, but the phone is thin, so it makes sense. But invest in an extended life battery if you plan on using this phone for alot more than just calls.
The vibrate function is weak. You hardly feel it in your pocket
I've had LG phones for the past 4 years so I was hooked on that brand, but I'm very satisfied with switching to Samsung, and I'm glad I have the u540. I highly recommend this phone!!!

I've had this phone for a week now and I like it a lot. Reception is great and I get a strong signal inside my brick aparment building. The inside screen is large and very clear. Volume in the earpiece is excellent and very rich sounding..not harsh and blaring like some other phones I've used. I've used voice dial, bluetooth, camera, and done texting and IM on Yahoo and everything has worked perfectly.

The phone is nice looking two-tone silver and black, inside is all black with nice large keys. I like the fact there is no stubby antenna on the outside and since it's a thinner phone it fits nicely in your pants pocket. The only minor thing is I wish the outside display stayed lit up, I like to see the time. You need to hold the volume up or done rocker switch to "wake up" the display when the phone is closed. When it's opened, the outside display does stay dimly lit but it's blank.

I've had LG and Motorola phones in the past, so this was a switch for me and so far I am sold on Samsung.

I've had this phone for about 2 weeks now and i'm very pleased with it. THe battery life isnt that great but i can get over that. The clarity of the picures i take is amazing and the sound qulity blows me away. I got it for only $20 dollars and it was definatly worth it. And like the others said, i wish i could music from my computer on there with the syncing technology thats available but i dont want to pay to much extra. If you're looking for a new phone, this is it.

I am a long time Verizon customer and considering their current phone lineup, I felt the price to feature ratio outweighed the others in the same price range $49 (2 for 1) to $100.

I had a Chocolate that I got in December 2006, but I did not like the phone (keypad and sensor dial). I've had the U540 for 5 days and I'm pleased with it. I had enough memory to download a single CD and the sound quality is great (stereo speakers) and no speaker buzz (I actually can hear bass) at all, even at the max volume (the Chocolate was mono, but sound quality is good).

There is a downside, but not so much with the phone. There isn't any cell-to-PC sync software for this model. I used Audacity and BitPim to create ringtones for the Chocolate and synch my Chocolate apps (calendar, contacts, notes, music, ringtones) with my PC (Outlook 2k). I'm hoping that sync software will be out soon that supports this model.

Overall I'm pleased with the U540 considering I got two for $49 (supports up to 2Gb Micro SD, stereo speakers, music player) . I even preferred it over the Moto Sliver and the new U740 (QWERTY keypad is way too small).

I just got this last night as a package deal with a Bluetooth cord free headset and car charger/leather case for a really good price. So far the only thing I don't like about it is that the clock on the front does not stay on. I have read the manual and can't figure out if it is just not possible or if I am missing something! Other than that, the graphics are great compared to the 2 year old LG VX model I have had until now, and the sound quality is also very good. It has limited built in ring tones which I assume is to make you spend more money on good ones, but there are a couple of neat features like having a quill pen scratch out the numbers you type in when calling someone and a pretty xylophone sound you can select for button sounds. It also is a lot faster hooking up to the web and getting applications. I like the design so far. It doesn't feel like it is going to go flying out of my hands when I open it. The case is also very nice. I haven't yet put any music on it because it did not come with the sync cable and I do not feel like paying 1.99$ per song when I have a huge library already built up on iTunes. I think they should have included the cable personally. Plus it is not available by itself on the verizonwireless website. You have to spend $50 on a "package" that you probably won't use.
Overall I am very satisfied with this phone's features and abilities for the price that I paid!