Samsung SCH-u620

By itself, the Samsung SCH-u620 is a good phone. Its two-inch slider screen offers a bright picture, and its white-on-black menus are easy on the eyes. Its keypad offers large, well-lit, slightly convex keys for easy dialing, and conversation quality is loud and clear and nearly free of interference at both ends.
 
But the SCH-u620 can't be viewed in a vacuum. For the time being, it's Ashley Simpson compared with Jessica Simpson, vanilla compared with every other ice cream flavor, rear-projection TV compared with plasma. It's an above-average cell phone, but second-class compared with other V CAST phones, like the LG VX9400.
 
The SCH-u620 has a smaller screen, and the TV picture it displays is not as pitch-perfect as the LG VX9400's, although to be fair you would only notice this during a side-by-side comparison. Without seeing the VX9400's TV picture, you'd be quite pleased with the SCH-u620's images. Plus, sans the LG swivel screen, you're constantly turning the phone horizontally and vertically, depending on the TV content and function.
 
The same goes for EV-DO Web speed. Pages filled and video clips and music downloaded about as fast as we anticipated on the SCH-u620. It wasn't until we put this slider up against the LG VX9400 that we discovered the SCH-u620 lagged a few seconds for Web pages, sometimes nearly a minute behind when downloading long clips or tracks.
 
Ditto for battery life. Rated talk and standby time on the Samsung phone are about average. But the LG phone far surpasses both the Samsung's talk and standby times and nearly doubles the TV-watching time: 6 hours compared with nearly 3.5 hours.
 
Unfortunately, this lackluster comparison also extends to the camera images, which appeared bleached and lacked the accurate colors rendered by the LG. You'll also have to stand much further back from your subject to squeeze it all into the frame. Although there's a ten-step digital zoom, the image barely seems to grow.
 
Ergonomically, the smaller, lighter and rounded SCH-u620 fits better in a pants pocket, and its white-on-black keys are easier to read than the VX9400's keys, backlit or not. Conversation reception on the SCH-u620 was also a mite cleaner and resisted more ambient interference than the VX9400. 
 
If you're set on using a Samsung phone, you won't be unhappy with the SCH-u620, but if you can spend $50 more, the LG VX9400 will make you much happier.

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