Samsung A950

March 15th, 2006 | by Vince Veneziani

Features and Design

The Samsung A950 is a flip-phone with some unique features. It uses Verizon's CDMA network for calls and data at the 800/1900 MHz band. The phone features Bluetooth technology, so you can make calls on your headset, and it also has advanced voice-dialing options.

When you take the phone out of the box, you'll immediately notice the music player controls on the front. You can use four buttons to play/pause, stop, and skip tracks, and a jog-dial to scroll back and forth through a song. The jog-dial is a neat feature for a flip-phone, especially since it's on the outside. Thankfully, it works great and is perfect for getting to the breakdown or solo in your favorite song. Above the jog-dial is an external color screen with 65,000 colors and a 128x96 resolution—very impressive for a screen on the outside of the phone. The screen can display everything from album art during music playback, to your face when taking a self portrait.

The integrated 1.3MP camera is quite nice. It resides above the aforementioned screen and offers a very bright LED flash. The camera in the A950 is better quality than the 1.3MP camera found on another Samsung phone, the T809. We aren't exactly sure why, but can only speculate its using different components.

Also nice are the speakers on the phone's sides. We're talking dual speakers with very loud, clear stereo sound, making movies and music very entertaining. You normally wouldn't find such speakers on a phone. You'll also find a dedicated camera button and volume controls, a TransFlash card slot for adding storage to the phone, and a headphone jack. Unfortunately, the headphone jack isn't standard size, which kills any chance of using good headphones with this phone. Then again, the A950 is being marketed as a VCAST phone, not a “Walkman Phone.”

Opening the phone reveals a beautiful 176 x 220 pixel, 262,000-color TFT screen. It's nice for viewing and displays videos wonderfully; you won't have any trouble reading it. The keypad is what you'll normally find on a Verizon-based Samsung phone. It has a four-way directional pad with shortcuts and an “OK” button in the middle, two generic function buttons on the side, “Send” and “End” call buttons, and a “Clear” button. The phone also features a dedicated speakerphone button, which is a welcome feature. You'll no longer have to dig through an onscreen menu to activate the speakerphone; you can just hit a button and start talking. Nothing else is special, just a basic 12-digit number pad, etc.

Image Courtesy of Samsung