Samsung Propel SGH-A767 – With high end features
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Slim design, lots of 3G and multimedia offerings
Thumbs Down:
Navigation array is flat, keyboard feels a bit cramped, display is lackluster.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone Design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other Features: Music player, camera.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Samsung Propel SGH-A767 has a 2.2 inch big display which gives a resolution of 176×220 pixels, or 262k colors. 1000 mAh lithium ion battery has rated talk time of 180 minutes and standby time is 240 hours. The phone comes preinstalled with messengers like Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger), AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger. Supported email protocols are IMPA4, SMTP, POP3.
Messaging/data features include WAP Push 2.0, E-Mail, Instant messages, Multimedia messages (MMS), Text messages. The 1.3 megapixel camera has resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels and also has 4x digital zoom.
Razzle Dazzle:
This phone’s design is quite similar to the Verizon Wireless Blitz. Both are square shaped and come along with a full size QWERTY keyboard. The Propel is 0.58 inch thick, 2.33 inches wide and 3.85 inches long which makes it thinner than Blitz. Propel looks more of a business phone than Blitz which feels cuddly and cute.
Inside Dope:
Samsung Propel SGH-A767 is the latest offering by AT&T after Pantech Matrix and both are by products of the text messaging craze that are taking over the entire world. It has a slide out full size QWERTY keyboard but this handset is not a smartphone. Samsung Propel SGH-A767 is yours for $79.95 and comes with a two year contract and after a mail-in rebate.
The display is 2.2 inches big and supports only 65k colors which is short of what other competitors are offering. The screen is decent but the colors are dull and look muted. Menu interface is the standard one which we are used to seeing on Samsung phones and you can adjust menu style, brightness, dialing font (background color, size, color and type) and the backlight time.
Below the display, there is the navigation array which consists of End/Power and Talk keys, Clear key, dedicated text message key, two soft keys and a round toggle with OK button in the middle. You can press the round button in four different directions and the direction press can be assigned a shortcut. The middle OK key launches the Web browser in the standby mode. The keys feel slippery.
The phone slides and you get a full QWERTY keyboard. They keys aren’t roomy or cramped, they are somewhere in the middle but we would have liked a better grip over the keys as these buttons too feel slippery. The keyboard not only has typical keys like Shift and Caps but also comes with dedicated buttons for AT&T’s Cellular Video service and the sound profile of the phone.
On the left side of the Samsung Propel SGH-A767, there is a micro SD card slot, volume rocker and on the right, there are shortcut keys and charger jack. The shortcut button is used to move between applications and games folder, music player, Media Net browser, messaging menu and the phone.
Samsung Propel SGH-A767 comes with a big 1000 entry level phone book and a single entry can take notes, IM handle, e-mail address, and 2 phone numbers. You can organize your friends by caller groups, and can also assign them a custom ring tone. There are 11 polyphonic ringtones to choose from. Other important features on the phone include voice recorder, stopwatch, timer, world time clock, unit converter, tip calculator, calculator, notepad, to-do list, calendar, alarm clock, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone, and vibrate mode. Advanced features include A-GPS, support for instant messengers like (Yahoo, Windows Live, and AOL), mobile e-mail, stereo Bluetooth and wireless Web browser.
The music player on the Samsung Propel SGH-A767 supports the following formats – AAC+, SMAF, WAV, MMF, MIDI, and MP3. You can download music or copy it through USB cable. The handset has 50 MB internal memory and you can put in more memory through the external card slot.
The 1.3 MP camera on the Samsung Propel SGH-A767 records in three resolutions and you get options of three quality settings, four effects of color and five settings for white balance.
Other settings include night mode, six shot modes (panorama, frame shot, mosaic shot, multishot and single shot), three shutter sounds along with a silent option, self timer, brightness and 3x zoom. The quality of the photos was good, the images looked bright and sharp but the colors were muted. The camera can also record videos.
Samsung Propel SGH-A767 comes with lots of sound and graphics to choose from. You can download more through AT&T’s Media Mall store. The handset comes with applications and games like Tetris, Midnight Bowling 2, JewelQuest 2, Guitar Hero III, WikiMobile, the Weather Channel, MobiTV and Mobile Banking. If you need more applications and games, you can purchase them through the store.
When tested the Samsung Propel SGH-A767 for its call quality and it was quite impressive. Our callers were clear and loud, they sounded natural on both cell phone and landline calls. Our friends too said the same thing, our voices were crisp and natural and they couldn’t tell that we were calling from a cellphone. Speakerphone call quality was surprisingly good.
The Samsung Propel SGH-A767 comes with a battery life of five hours and standby time is 10.4 days. The battery lasted for a little over three hours in our lab tests.
Nitty Gritty:
The design of the Samsung Propel SGH-A767 could have been better but we were impressed by its high end feature set.
