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30 of 30 found the following review helpful:
Ahhhh so close! Jun 05, 2009
By Aekero
I've been waiting for a good camera phone for a long time, and it seemed like the Memoir was the answer for me. Unfortunately, it falls just a little bit short on the camera side.
Pros:
*Looks sharp
*Good call quality
*Great music quality, I was surprised at the speaker quality, and it's easy to set any mp3 to be a ring tone.
*Nice voice dialing, never really thought I'd need it, but I used it.
*Great pictures in good light.
Cons:
*Touch screen isn't responsive enough, playing around with my Memoirs touch screen vs iPod Touch is night and day, you have to press a bit too hard, which ends up in misclicks.
*Shutter lag, the camera just flat out takes too long to take the picture once you hit the button. It takes too long to process between pictures as well, but really I'd be willing to overlook that.
*Flash issues, I'm not sure if this just stems from shutter lag as well, but taking night pictures is pretty bad. Overall action + night shots come out badly.
Overall I still like the phone, but as I really wanted the camera phone to be a replacement for my regular phone, it's a bit of a disappointment.
22 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 Not a SmartPhone, not for email use, decent camera, horrible touch screen Jul 22, 2009
By Lee A. Dye
"Lee Dye"
Was anticipating this phone for some time with it's 8 megapixel camera, stylish exterior,etc. With some time under my belt I can say that it does have some serious flaws which are not compatible with my needs. I use this phone on the TMobile network along with my hacked Iphone3G which in itself is a truly incredible piece of hardware.
Sound/Music quality:
Excellent. Phone exhibits great sound quality on both sides of the call. Music sounds good and on par with my Iphone. Speakerphone works decent if a little pitchy.
Reception: After having almost 10 phones with TMobile I can say this is on par with the best of them. No issues with reception and better than most of the phones I have had. TMobile generally has pretty decent reception where I am located. Far better than ATT, at least in Southern California.
Aesthetics:
Stylish and very portable. Fits nicely in my palm and though not the best for texting, it certainly can get the job done.
Touch screen:
Horrible touch screen interface. Now keep in mind I also use my Iphone often and can say this Samsung is not even in the same ball park in terms of touch screen interface. The Samsung is clunky and often times you will end up opening an application instead of just scrolling. Even when it does scroll it lacks any polish/smoothness that most phones have. This alone would have me return the phone. This is hardware, not software, as the Memoir uses resistive screen technology vs capacitive in other phones such as the Iphone.
Applications:
Extremely limited. Even Samsung's own PC Studio does not offer the full set of features. The Telenav GPS that comes with the phone will cost you $9.99 a month. Other phones offer free GPS without the annoyingly long start up time of this GPS. Also, nope, Google maps cannot be used on this phone. Not only that, to cancel this GPS you have to call and not only get transferred several times, the wait time is ridiculous.
Email, forget about it. You have to hack it to do POP3 email accounts, otherwise it converts your emails to Text and you get billed for them!!!! Even then you cannot give the POP3 accounts their specific names to identify them. You can use provider email services such as yahoo,gmail, etc.
Camera
Keep in mind one thing. Megapixels does not determine the quality of a picture just the same as magnification does not indicate the true resolve of a telescope. That stated, for a cel phone the images are good. They are not breath taking, they certainly do not compare to my pro equipment or even a cheap 5 megapixel $60 camera. Noise level is significant. Any motion will be captured as a blur even if the camera is placed in the action shot mode. Again, for a cel phone it is very good, as a camera it is not. EDIT: The Nokia N85 takes just as good if not better quality pictures even though it is 5mp which again proves it's the glass and sensor that count, not megapixels. The photos are certainly better than my new phone-HTC Touch Pro 2.
Battery:
Good, does hold a charge a while which is nice, and in usual Samsung behavior they placed the charging port behind a little silver door (another for the SDcard also) which must be pried out with your fingernails every time just to plug it in. Yes, this causes chips and wear on the door as my practically new unit is already exhibiting this.
Outlook compatibility/MS Exchange Service.
Ok, so this is where we separate the boys from the men and this is where this phone just falls on its face.
NO MS Exchange service to check corporate email accounts.
Outlook? Excel? Nope, PC Studio is NOT compatible with Office-any version-with this phone. I tried Outlook 2007, forget about it. What use is the software if contacts cannot be synchronized with the most popular email software on the planet? A search will review the countless complaints about this very issue. If you want to sync Contacts from Outlook your only option is to simply type them in. Now if your a hermit or someone with bad hygiene with only a couple of friends-fine, but if you have a list of contacts.......
Some would try to argue that this is not a SmartPhone even though it is priced above most SmartPhones and it requires the $25.00 data plan for internet use. I say that even cheapo $50 cel phones are available that offer real POP3 email and sync contacts with Outlook-not this phone.
That sums it up, if you are looking for a nice quality phone with a decent camera (for a phone) then this is for you.
If you are a road warrior of any kind and require your contacts to be sync'd with Outlook, and also require Exchange access, get an Iphone ,Nokia , or Blackberry, as this phone is not geared for the professional.
24 of 27 found the following review helpful:
 Wow..yellow and blurry pictures May 04, 2009
By Hi-Tech
Well, the title says it all. I was so excited to get this phone but after I took so many pictures I found out that most of my indoor pictures are yellow (flash is not strong enough) and blurry. It's on the way back to Tmobile now. The outdoor pictures are not great also. It's about the same as my old Tmobile Dash phone.
17 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Forget the GPS May 21, 2009
By H. razvi
"Photog"
The only way the GPS on this phone works is if you subscribe to the Telenav software service for a fee of $9.99 a month. The phone is unable to download the free google maps program which will do the same job for free. Also the GPS software will waste a few minutes while it connects to Telenav to verify your account. After that you still have to go into the menu to activate your gps reciever and wait a few minutes to get a signal.
That is the biggest complaint I have about this phone. I upgraded from my nokia N93. Compared to the N93 I found that the memoir does not have WiFi, a focusing lense, a flashlight, and is unable to take video in lowlight conditions.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 The best reasonably accessible camera phone available Dec 22, 2009
By TECK13
Before I dive into reviewing the Samsung Memoir SGH-929 first some notes regarding my perspective/biases. I am memorized by cameras and have been messing around with them for 40 years on and off. I have been shooting with digital cameras for nine years and they have come a long way in those short years. My "regular" cameras include a prosumer Nikon SLR and a Fuji compact. My previous camera phone was a Samsung FlipShot. In spite of "only" being 3MP I got some awesome shots with it.
All this is to say that my critical comments will be primarily focused around the camera. I can see someone NOT into photography getting the Samsung Memoir but for all-around phones there are clearly better choices - starting with the iPhone.
My bottom line is similar to others. This is probably the best reasonably accessible camera phone available right now but it does not even match a $75 dedicated compact camera. First off, it does not have an optical zoom. Since the Memoir has 8 MP, under ideal conditions, you can zoom in around 50% and still have a pretty good shot, which is a partial work around to no zoom.
Outdoor shots with strong light look surprisingly good. Nice resolution and very accurate colors. Edge to edge sharpness is pretty good too. Focusing is a bit slow but works extremely well. Even in low light situations where a red focusing assist light illuminates. Exposure is good too and the ability to select matrix, center weighted or spot is very useful. Unfortunately if you focus on something (with the shutter button pushed half way) and then recompose the shot, the Memoir WILL hold the focus but the exposure continues to adjust in real time. Bummer that.
Indoor pictures are pretty grim. With the flash off, almost all the pictures are dark and the white balance is way off. If there is a light source it tends to be surrounded with purple fringing. And, as others have noted, there is a yellow cast to everything. Activating the Xenon flash gives a little welcome light but actually aggravates the yellow cast. Ah, but there is something that will help the more critical half of this situation, that no one else seems to have noted. Take the camera off auto ISO, with or without flash. Set it on ISO 400. The pictures will be a bit grainy but you do get the shot and the dreadful yellow cast can easily be fixed in post processing. Of course, using ISO 400 also "turbo charges" the light from the flash moving it from an almost useless range of a couple of feet to 6 or 7 feet. In Auto ISO, even in very dimly lit rooms, the camera simply doesn't seem to push past ISO 200, resulting in the dark pictures.
The camera is slow. It is faster than my FlipShot but that still leaves it as sad. Push the shutter and a second or two later the picture is taken. Then several painful seconds must pass before another picture can be taken. Sports photography is out; even capturing the dog is a challenge. A quick rant. When, oh when, will the BS marketing MP thing end? My first dedicated digital camera had only 3MP and its pictures walk all over the 8 MP Memoir due to an excellent Carl Zeiss lens and an excellent digital processing engine. Put 6MP max in a cell phone, then it is easier to make it work in work in low light and shoot fast. This year we'll see cell phones with 12 MP. Please. Make the camera better, not the marketing.
Back to the Memoir. The layout and controls of the Memoir are superb. It looks and handles like a dedicated camera. As stated before the only important thing missing is an exposure lock button. The screen is large enough and of sufficient quality to see if you got the shot and to share pictures with other people. Nice. The geotagging works well but it is slow to lock. I do wish, when one is reviewing the details of a phone in camera, that it would display the ISO setting of the picture.
Videos seem surprisingly good for a phone but I am less critical about video than the photo picture quality.
Non-Camera Stuff
The phone works better for me than my Flipshot did. The quality of the calls also beats my wife's iPhone but that's not saying much. For strict phone quality, the various Motorola phones I have used were head and shoulders above the rest.
I downloaded one game, Asphalt 4, and it is unplayable. Abysmal. A total embarrassment. Dodgy controls, horrible ancient graphics. My 3-year-old FlipShot had far superior driving games available. And T-Mobile's selection of games for the Memoir seems juvenile and poppy.
Web stuff is OK but it's no iPhone. The weather widget is cool. Simple pleasures.
The keyboard is great and texting is a pleasure. The phone book is robust. The music player is more than serviceable but the proprietary headphone jack flat out sucks. The size of the phone to me is just right. For actual phone conversations I prefer the clamshell design but for photos a larger screen is required. However, the Memoir is not so big that it is uncomfortable to use as a phone and it doesn't look like you are holding a tablet up to the side of your head.
I am sure someone else has said this but my POV is that the best camera is the one you have with you. I often carry my compact camera with me, and on most near and far adventures I try to take my SLR. But most of the time the only device on my person is my phone. The Memoir is not the camera phone I would design for myself or other real camera buffs but as far as subsidized camera phones go only the Sony c905a comes close. Nokia makes a better camera phone but it is not subsidized.
With patience and some skill shots that will blow away most people when they learn they came from a cell phone are as close as the Samsung Memoir in your pocket.
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