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My Samsung i730 photoshoot

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@md0Cer

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Location
Denver, CO
I bought a used Samsung i730 and thought I would get some pics up and a few comments.

Just to take note, it came with two extended batteries and one slim, the slim one is flush with the back of the PDAphone, but is in the charging slot of the cradle (which I might add is awesome because I can charge the PDA and on the bottom charge an additional battery at the same time), the extended battery which is twice the size and bulges is attached to the phone in the photos.

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Comments:

As you all probably can tell by the pictures this is a PDA/Phone running Windows Mobile.

It has a 520Mhz Intel processor, one of the fastest for PDA Phones, and even PDA's as well as I hear.

It has 64mb of ram, 128mb of flash, and an SD card slot.


Basically, as you can tell from reading any review of this phone on the internet, it has a lot of features and a lot of things that people absolutely loved about it. Not all the reviews were flawless though, the i730 does have some downsides which kinda made me want to consider the XV6700 instead, however, after owning the phone, all of these have been addressed and this is pretty much the perfect phone in my book.

1.) Drains battery life like none other. This was one of the complaints about this phone, and once I got it I was a little bummed at the battery life myself. That is, until I upgraded to Windows Mobile 5 from Windows Mobile 2003SE. WM5 is a completely rewritten OS even though it looks similar. Instead of keeping all open applications and saved data in the ram of the phone, like in 2003SE, it caches it or writes it to the non-volatile 128mb of flash ram. This is incredibly beneficial because first, normal ram eats power, so it doesn't constantly have EVERYTHING in the ram and using a lot of power, also since it is all stored there, if there is a power loss you lose it, so when the PDA reports no battery life left, beeps at you, and turns off the screen automatically, it really has between 1/3 and 1/2 of the battery left. In WM5 since this isn't an issue, it uses more of the battery as well. This is also a plus because it frees up more ram and you can run more stuff!

2.) Can't use wifi and the phone radio at the same time. This was the second major complaint about this phone. There are however hacks for WM2003SE to work around this, and when I upgraded to WM5 this is a non-issue. In WM5 you can have the phone on, wifi on, bluetooth on and connected, and use the infra red to control your home entertainment center (or freak out your freind by controlling his aftermarket car stereo while hes driving ) all at the same time, and end up with better battery life too!

3.)People say the buttons are very narrow and closely spaced. I find this is true, but they are very domed and stick out which makes it unbelievably easy! I was even surprised. This is absolutely what made this phone for me, because it can be slid open easilly with one hand, just put your thumb on the verizon logo thingy and push up and voila! it slides open, then your thumb is right in place on the keyboard. While driving I can pop it up and dial a number by feel without ever looking at the phone. And i've already only had it for a week. Oh, it also has voicesignal too, so over your bluetooth headset, or your fancy Lexus or Acura, or even without anything and just talking into the phone, you can issue voice commands and it works really quite well!

4.) Lack of a camera, well, what are you gonna do, unfortunately windows mobile 5 or a software hack can't fix this one, but meh, no biggie for me.





Also some other things I really like about this phone is that unlike other PDA phones, this actually has stereo speakers on the backside, so with my 150X 4GB SD card in it, I can watch a movie and have it play quite loud out the speakers with pretty amazing sound quality. This also makes for a speakerphone that goes REALLY loud and still being crystal clear, great for making those huge groupwide speakerphone calls.

The dock/cradle being able to charge both batteries is awesome, I really like that thing. That has to be the coolest cradle ive ever seen. The slim battery it comes with is surprisingly lightweight and thin for 1100mAH, it is a Lithium-Polymer battery. Unfortunatly the two huge honkin extended batteries are Lithium Ion, and thus they actually are noticeably heavier and definitely bulkier, however it works great as a finger rest when holding the phone!

The only other thing I can really say, is that after using Windows Mobile 2003 and thinking it was the most awesome thing in the world, upgrade to WM5, it is absolutely amazing and puts WM2003SE to shame with a bunch more features, some things layed out so much better, the addition of soft keys, and a lot more customization, not to mention the core improvements with the management and way of using ram helping performance and battery life. WM5 WM5 WM5 WM5!!!! I love it!

Anyway here are some more pics, with the slim Li-Po battery this time:

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Looks awesome! I had my eye on one of these for the longest time but ended up not getting one to save cash.

It seems smaller and thinner than I'd have guessed too.
 
Gautam said:
Looks awesome! I had my eye on one of these for the longest time but ended up not getting one to save cash.

It seems smaller and thinner than I'd have guessed too.


They actually aren't too too expensive! Ebay for the win. :thup: This phone retailed at prices I wouldn't even think about and I got it for 140ish off of ebay. In fact, I was winning my bid at 99 dollars until 1 second from the end someone tried to snipe it and ended up losing the bid anyway, running me up to my max bid.

I had a big problem too, but once I started filing paypal claims and whatnot things got sorted out: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=513867



As for the thickness, I thought it would be a bit thicker too, but its not bad. In those photos thats with the huge honkin battery too. I'll get some up with the slim battery. I kinda like the giant battery in that its a finger rest to hold the phone with. :D
 
I absolutely love it. I bought a transcend 4gb 150X 22.5MBps Secure Digital card for it for 40ish bucks off of Newegg. :D Next up is perhaps a Jabra BT500 bluetooth headset so I can not only make calls with just the headset but listen to music and movies too. :D
 
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