Samsung Impression SGH-A877- black (AT&T)

ITS A SAMSUNG
MODEL : Samsung Impression SGH-A877- black (AT&T)

Messaging phones were big news at CTIA 2009 and AT&T's Samsung Impression, aka the Samsung SGH-A877, quickly emerged as one of the most talked-about handsets at the show. With a brilliant display, a solid multimedia feature set, and a spacious keyboard, it offers just about everything you'd want from a messaging handset. And even though we didn't test the call quality at CTIA, which turned out to pretty good, we did name it as our best phone of the show. We had a couple of complaints, but on the whole it's one of the best AT&T phones we've seen in a while. The Impression is $399 if you pay full price or $199 with service and a mail-in rebate.
DesignFrom the outside, the Samsung Impression resembles the LG Xenon. It has a similar shape and the keyboard feels about the same. We were glad it wasn't another recycled design of the Samsung Rant. But when compared with the Xenon, the Impression makes a better go at it. The display is larger and more vibrant and the controls are more comfortable. It's also a bit bigger (4.48 inches long by 2.28 inches wide by 0.61 inch deep) and heavier (5.3 ounces), but the Impression has a sturdy, ergonomic feel in the hand. The dark blue color scheme almost looks black, and we like the curved edges; together they give the phone an eye-catching appeal.
The Impression's touch screen is undoubtedly the highlight. As an active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display, it is a sight to behold with its brilliant colors, bright graphics, and sharp animations. At 3.25 inches, it's just over the minimum size that we require from a touch-screen phone, but it offers plenty of room for most functions. The display is responsive and we welcome the tactile feedback. You can change the calibration and the intensity of the feedback.
On the bottom of the display are three touch controls for the phone dialer, the contacts menu, and the main menu. The interface for the phone dialer features large numbers and a shortcut for the contacts menu. You can also use the standard 10-button keypad to tap out text messages, but we're not sure why you'd want to.
The icon-based menu interface is intuitive and easy to use; we had no issues finding what we wanted in the submenus. And thanks to the "power search" feature, you can thumb through a long list of contacts using the first letter of each entry. Other display options you can adjust include the brightness, font type, and the backlight time.
The Impression offers Samsung's TouchWiz interface, which we've seen on several of the company's phones over the past few months. As we've said before, Touch Wiz has its good points and its bad points. Though we like the collapsible navigation bar and its shortcut widgets, we wish it offered more customization. Sure, you can move the widgets around at will, but you can't create new widgets beyond the ones that come on the phone.
Below the display are three physical controls: the Talk, End/power, and Clear keys. Though they're flat with the surface of the phone, they remain spacious and tactile. Other exterior controls consist of a display-locking key and a camera shutter on the right spine, and a volume rocker and a shortcut control on the right spine. Pressing the latter will open onscreen shortcuts for the phone dialer, the messaging menu, the Web browser, the music player, and the games menu.
On the top of the phone is the combination headset jack/charger port. Though it's conveniently located, the jack is proprietary so you can only use your own headset with an adapter (not good). Also, you can use only one peripheral at a time. The camera lens and speaker are on the back side of the phone and the memory card slot rests behind the battery cover. Fortunately, you don't need to remove the battery to access it